The frogs all splashed away when we walked up to the pond with the kids a few days ago and Daddy saw a chance to see their eyes widen. His melon-sized chunk of dirt ker-plunked down close to where the frogs had jumped, making the biggest splash of all. With exclamations of what a large frog to run into, he got one widened pair of eyes that weren’t quite sure and another pair that were pretty doubtful, while the oldest girl, in step with the dog, already had interests further around the pond.
They’re getting older with an unsuspecting rawness that’s beginning to break down a bit as they grow more familiar with the reality of life. And I suppose, more familiar with the type of playfulness their Daddy shows.
The cat showed up in tow behind us as the sunlight dawned more dim and more splashes were made by sticks and rocks thrown from their little hands… growing hands.
And even as we dearly miss the child-eyes full of wonder that used to have no speck of doubt in sight, I am full with another kind of wonder, too. For if that unsuspecting part of the children in us did not go through the process of breaking down, surely none of us would ever grow up into people who can see and interact with reality as it truly is. Perhaps there are many times when it's that kind of breaking down that can most help us grow, yet I can imagine that there are other kinds of breaking down that are healing and needed at other times too.
When it comes to seeing a situation as a gigantic frog splash or a chunk of dirt thrown by your Daddy, some children could easily find motivation for seeing past the frog story if they have a desire to believe that they’re growing up and getting too smart to be impressed so easily. Whereas some children, especially smaller children, could easily become quite defensive of the giant frog story if they are very attached to the unique experience of getting to witness such a large frog splash.
Yet, on the other hand, if there ever truly is a giant frog splash, the first child would be likely to not believe it at all.
I know I was eight years old and my brother, I think, was six when we heard the news from my dad that our family would soon be welcoming a new baby and we were far above falling for a joke like that. Our dad would have no pleasure of tricking us into any excitement over something so preposterous. We were too grown up to fall for stories.
But of course, it wasn’t a story and mom really was a few months away from having a baby. I don’t remember exactly what it was that finally convinced us. Of course, we deeply wanted it to be true, so I know that helped. I just remember how determined we were to not fall for any stories because maybe we also deeply wanted to avoid the hurt of getting too attached to something that might not be true.
Sometimes in order to see what is true, the part of us that needs to break down is the part of us that is afraid of getting too attached to a story that always does have the possibility of getting into our hearts in a way that could hurt. There are times when seeing the truth requires feeling like a little child again.
I’d dare believe that these ways of relating with reality are common to humanity and that sometimes, even as adults, our desire to be intellectual, to take great care to not be deceived by our hearts, can interfere greatly with our ability to use our hearts in hearing and listening to the stories all around us, maybe sometimes especially, the stories of the hurting. Sometimes giving our ears and our hearts to the stories of the marginalized, the poor, the disadvantaged, the underprivileged and the hurting may cost us grief and discomfort. It can be painful to hear a problem that you have no fix for, and it can hurt to give your heart to something, when there will be no such thing as quick results where systems of trauma and systems of inequality run so deep. It can hurt to ponder the idea that what you were able to give did not turn a situation around in the way and the time that you hoped. And maybe what can hurt more is the realization when you remember what you forgot, that you, yourself, are not so much helped when someone simply wants to help you, but when someone is willing to listen and believe your pain and be changed by you along the way, ready to learn and be moved simply from seeing the beauty of the story and journey that God is writing into your life. I read the quote a few months ago in Osheta Moore’s book and it resounded as what I can often feel too when I am in need of the people around me: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” (Quote often attributed to Lilla Watson.)
I feel this deeply too in the realizations of love. For you can fall in love with someone from a segment of humanity that you have never known so well before, and your heart can widen in a thousand ways, tying your heart to the equality and dignity of this very part of humanity in a way you’ve never felt before. And you can wonder why you had never yet seen the significance of this. How simply, sometimes quietly attaching your heart in a way that could hurt, to people from so many kinds of walks of life can widen your heart in a thousand ways with the deepest truth that could never be put into any kind of spreadsheet or fact check or research report. The truth that the equality and dignity of every segment of humanity is deeply tied to my own,
for if we as a people hold to any excuse for not assigning the most intrinsic depth of value to any part or person of humanity, we all lose out disastrously.
Sometimes perhaps we must feel all of the tension of this and feel it long while we grieve the depths of what cannot be fixed within our timelines and tidy ideas and learn what we will do with all of the brokenness of this.
Maybe hope lives in trust that Love is an army that fights the shame of trauma with every little voice of belief we give and every little prayer we voice that found its way out in Love through the hearts of souls we may never know in this life.
Maybe hope knows that the beauty of Love is so strong that Love itself, never was distorted when I got it wrong. Still, Love invites me into all of her own beauty.
Be the voice of belief because we all need believing. And come too, and jump headfirst into the celebration of the prodigal, the prodigal who did the unthinkable, yet takes shaky steps turned home, who has not one thing in his life together. Jump into the party all in
because we are all the prodigals who’ve made a mess of it and need deep down inside to see the Father running. To know He saw us from a long way off and scrambled on toward us with the run that let loose all of his manners of dignity for the joy of welcoming us home with full kiss and embrace for His dearly beloved little child with robes and a fattened calf and all the stops to celebrate us. (Luke 15:11-32.)
You belong. This is where you belong. And even when we feel more like we’ve been the older brother, standing on the side, despising the celebration of prodigals, the Father’s compassion is not short. The Father came to the son who stood outside, invited him with love into the celebration. And even when the brother still could not see the value of the prodigal, the Father’s Love ran on in his words to the older son… “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32.)
The home of the Father is ours to come to and this is where we all are so welcome to belong. And no matter who cannot yet see the value of any one,
the Father will never be disheartened or any less enamored in the celebration of utter belonging for even one of His most misunderstood children.
No matter who it could be who doesn’t understand, we can be firmly established with let-your-hair-down rejoicing in a Father whose heart is so tenderly tied to the most lost and hurting among us that He won’t stop looking.
He will not ever be the slightest bit disheartened in the all-out celebration for even one who saw that he simply could not get it right, and started stepping home.
Thank you for requesting Loving and Leaning!
You should see an email from us soon.