Lessons from my daughter

The past 7 months or so have been an interesting season in my life. If I had to pick one word to describe it would be uncertainty. We’re still working through the church question, still trying to sell our house and I’ll be starting a brand new career as a teacher in two weeks. Plus throw in a lot of other things and you arrive at what has seemed at times a very chaotic first half of 2007. So I’ve asked myself recently what I’ve learned, and the best lessons have come from my daughter Reese. Here are just a few...

- The most important thing to Reese is her time with Mommy and Daddy. She doesn’t really care all that much if her toys change and get fancier. She really cares about the givers and not the gifts. She couldn’t survive if all she had was her stuff and didn’t have Mommy and Daddy. That’s a lesson that I need to continually be reminded of in relation to the Giver of life.

- I tell Reese not to touch something and five minutes later she’s trying to touch it again. At first this frustrated me but then I realized that I can do the same thing to God when I make the same mistake over and over again. Thankfully God is very patient.

- Recently Reese has decided that she only wants to eat grilled cheese for lunch and dinner. She can get quite upset if we don’t give her the food she wants. But obviously we can’t just feed her grilled cheese. Reese doesn’t realize what she needs nutritionally. It’s my job as her father to make sure she gets what she needs even if she doesn’t like it at the time. I keep asking God for certain things, but haven’t seemed to have gotten them yet. Maybe He knows what I need instead of what I want?

- There are times when Reese gets scared because she thinks that I’ve left her. And perhaps I’ve left the room but I still know exactly where she is and I can hear her cries. She cries because her vantage point is not the same as mine. I’ve learned that in the same way I freak out and question what God is doing and if he knows how dire my situation is. The fact is that he knows exactly where I am even when I don’t know what He’s doing. Just because I can’t see Him doesn’t mean that He can’t see me.

It’s crazy how much you can learn from a little girl.