Who Are You?
I'm typing fast! I can feel my house waking up and just as I typed those words I heard a baby cry. :)
It flies. Time flies.
That's one recurring thought that keeps shooting through my tired brain these days. Time - especially with my kids - flies.
To me there has not been another source so evident of times passing as my children growing up. It's brevity makes me stop and think - stop and ask bigger questions than I might otherwise. Legacy does that - it makes you periodically take those quick intakes of air and leaves that feeling of having forgotten something important until you remember.
The other day I was sitting on a couch in a principal's office. Beside me was my husband, on my lap was my newborn son and in the chair next to the couch was my oldest son who is a senior this year and will be 18 in a few short weeks.
We were answering questions about who we were, why we had chosen for my oldest to take a few classes at this college preparatory school and offering general information about our life. "Who are we?" That's a good question to answer now and then.
It's interesting what comes up in your heart and your head in an interview like the one we were in that day. I don't like to be rushed in conversation and more importantly I want to be heard and understood. And I wasn't really feeling any of those things in this interview. But that fact isn't odd because when I'm being asked to conform to ... anything... I usually feel the urge to buck the system, over explain myself and want to conform the system to my way of thinking.
While this is the way I am wired I have learned, as I approach my 40th birthday, that this need and desire to individualize myself is something I often am asked by my Father to lay down. Not "lay down" as in change who I am and not be the person to ask the uncomfortable question or dream of other ways to do something; but to choose my battles - because not everything is a battle.
Toward the end of the interview the princpal asked my oldest son, "So tell me about yourself. Who is Jonathan Burr?"
I froze. My oldest son is like his mother - a thinker. And if there is something you should know about Thinkers it's that they need a time to think. Throwing deep questions out there to them like "Who are you?"...those take time to respond to because questions like these are important to a Thinker. Feelers often feel the freedom to feel. :) And feelings change and so a feeler doesn't feel as permanently tied to their feelings - questions are easier to answer for a Feeler.
As I sat there wondering how my son would respond I went blank. There were a thousand different ways he could answer that question. Goodness - if it's a hard question for an adult to answer, it's an extremely hard question for a teenager.
Time flying by in a house where you're raising children and praying He infuses your parenting is just plain scary. Along the way and moreso to the end of their time with you you wonder what they've caught, what have they held on to. There are those days when you look at a given child and think "Who ARE you?!!" and where did you come from? And what have you caught that I've thrown your way - sometimes over and over again.
This child in particular is one that ask those uncomfortable questions. The one who makes you stop and make sure what you believe. A hard child to parent, but the kind of adult you want your child to grow up to be - one that truly believes what they think.
"Who are you?"
As silence hung in the air for a moment and my son's dad and I stared straight ahead at the bookcase on the wall opposite us -time frozen in the waiting. "Who is my son?" bounced around in our heads or more accurately, "Who does he think he is?" because we know who he is, but would he remember? Had he heard us over the past 18 years?
The baby stirred on my lap and I looked down and thought in this frozen moment, "It flies and you were a baby yesterday...do you know who you are?"
"First and foremost, I am a son of God. That's how I see myself."
These words rolled maturely off his lips and flew across the room to the principal who looked, honestly, a bit shocked. I was shocked. His dad was shocked.
This son of ours had caught time and made it stand still.
What else was there to say? What else matters? Really.
Sitting there with my eyes stinging and my heart soaring with His faithfulness to redeem our broken attempts to communicate this to our firstborn over the course of his life I was reminded of who I am. Who you are is something good to remember when you are alive. It keeps everything in focus, everything in perspective.
The house is awake - I'm awake too...
I am a daughter of God.
It flies. Time flies.
That's one recurring thought that keeps shooting through my tired brain these days. Time - especially with my kids - flies.
To me there has not been another source so evident of times passing as my children growing up. It's brevity makes me stop and think - stop and ask bigger questions than I might otherwise. Legacy does that - it makes you periodically take those quick intakes of air and leaves that feeling of having forgotten something important until you remember.
The other day I was sitting on a couch in a principal's office. Beside me was my husband, on my lap was my newborn son and in the chair next to the couch was my oldest son who is a senior this year and will be 18 in a few short weeks.
We were answering questions about who we were, why we had chosen for my oldest to take a few classes at this college preparatory school and offering general information about our life. "Who are we?" That's a good question to answer now and then.
It's interesting what comes up in your heart and your head in an interview like the one we were in that day. I don't like to be rushed in conversation and more importantly I want to be heard and understood. And I wasn't really feeling any of those things in this interview. But that fact isn't odd because when I'm being asked to conform to ... anything... I usually feel the urge to buck the system, over explain myself and want to conform the system to my way of thinking.
While this is the way I am wired I have learned, as I approach my 40th birthday, that this need and desire to individualize myself is something I often am asked by my Father to lay down. Not "lay down" as in change who I am and not be the person to ask the uncomfortable question or dream of other ways to do something; but to choose my battles - because not everything is a battle.
Toward the end of the interview the princpal asked my oldest son, "So tell me about yourself. Who is Jonathan Burr?"
I froze. My oldest son is like his mother - a thinker. And if there is something you should know about Thinkers it's that they need a time to think. Throwing deep questions out there to them like "Who are you?"...those take time to respond to because questions like these are important to a Thinker. Feelers often feel the freedom to feel. :) And feelings change and so a feeler doesn't feel as permanently tied to their feelings - questions are easier to answer for a Feeler.
As I sat there wondering how my son would respond I went blank. There were a thousand different ways he could answer that question. Goodness - if it's a hard question for an adult to answer, it's an extremely hard question for a teenager.
Time flying by in a house where you're raising children and praying He infuses your parenting is just plain scary. Along the way and moreso to the end of their time with you you wonder what they've caught, what have they held on to. There are those days when you look at a given child and think "Who ARE you?!!" and where did you come from? And what have you caught that I've thrown your way - sometimes over and over again.
This child in particular is one that ask those uncomfortable questions. The one who makes you stop and make sure what you believe. A hard child to parent, but the kind of adult you want your child to grow up to be - one that truly believes what they think.
"Who are you?"
As silence hung in the air for a moment and my son's dad and I stared straight ahead at the bookcase on the wall opposite us -time frozen in the waiting. "Who is my son?" bounced around in our heads or more accurately, "Who does he think he is?" because we know who he is, but would he remember? Had he heard us over the past 18 years?
The baby stirred on my lap and I looked down and thought in this frozen moment, "It flies and you were a baby yesterday...do you know who you are?"
"First and foremost, I am a son of God. That's how I see myself."
These words rolled maturely off his lips and flew across the room to the principal who looked, honestly, a bit shocked. I was shocked. His dad was shocked.
This son of ours had caught time and made it stand still.
What else was there to say? What else matters? Really.
Sitting there with my eyes stinging and my heart soaring with His faithfulness to redeem our broken attempts to communicate this to our firstborn over the course of his life I was reminded of who I am. Who you are is something good to remember when you are alive. It keeps everything in focus, everything in perspective.
The house is awake - I'm awake too...
I am a daughter of God.
*tears* what an amazing story of God's love and grace to us in parents, all wrapped up in one simple answer. beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSeconding the tears. Inspired to keep speaking truth to my tiny ones.
ReplyDelete