Seeing your name in typeset is sort of worth all the rejections you've experienced in this nerdy thing that you do. What's more, when your kid reads the cover page of the proposal with recognition: "Lee. Fam-I-Lee?" it's among the most affirming moments in life.
Yesterday evening, while watching cartoons and eating pasta, Baby Girl said to me, tending to a fire in the fireplace, "I want to give my life to Jesus. So when I turn seven, I want to get bath-tized." She had been hinting at this for a couple of weeks now. The thinking about the bath-tism.
I felt a mix of humbled, ecstatic and slightly apprehensive. I had always thought that when one of my children decided to get baptized, it would be somewhat prompted. That we'd have a conversation about it and maybe start studying the Bible together and talk about what this starting a new life in God meant. This is where I was humbled by my five year-old, doing exactly what I had hoped she would do, just totally out of order. Sigh to the Firstborns.
And of course then there is that whole other wavelength of anxiety that I try not to ride because what if this is not for real. What if she is just a bandwagonner. Or what if this is totally sincere but this is the last time she says this? What if tomorrow she decides to join the Hare Krishnas or swim to Cuba or buy into a ponzi scheme WHAT THEN!?!
But I know those fears are not from Above. I know God rewards a consistent fidelity. I am so happy, so happy for our girl. May her desire to know the Lord grow deep and wide.
After Baby Girl went to bed and Little Man, who has been sick, got up from his fever dream, he was mock-playing with a My Little Pony and he said, "I'm interested in girl things."
So yesterday was just a big day for speaking the truths on our heart, no words were minced, nothing withheld.
9:21p. Almost two hours ago she was supposed to be in bed. She is standing in the kitchen in her jammies, cutting out a paper fan; she wants to bring it in for show-and-tell tomorrow. Her mother's brow is furrowed, correcting misuse of verb tenses in a paper that needs an extreme makeover.
"Time to go brush your teeth, again, Baby Girl."
"Mama, I just--
"Come on, girl. Brush. Teeth."
"Mama, but I--"
"What??"
"I just have to tell ya something. I wanted to say that...that I think love is the only thing that can mend a hole in your heart."
The mother's grading pen was dropped and arms were outstretched.
Hugs were given.
Teeth were brushed.
Beds were found.
Papers were still graded.
And the thoughts of a nighttime mini-priestess of philosophy were not unspoken.
