Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A Toe in the Door
















For Janie the world is a collection of the obvious.

"I wash my hair most times so my hair doesn't smell like dog hair," she says.

Or, "I would not want to be a slave because I don't like to clean."

A few days ago I asked if she could think of one thing that would make our family better. "To be in heaven," she said, "for our whole family to be in heaven." Sometimes she tells me she just can't wait to go to heaven, and why can't she go there now? I try to tell her we would never see her again until we died, but she's just so glad about all being in heaven together with God that she hardly pauses. Life for her is just a comma or apostrophe in a long and involved story where God is the hero. It's her toe in the door to something big. Maybe all this time I've been trying to make our tiny comma of life significant, when it is really the whole rest of the story that is spell binding.

4 comments:

Lori said...

You're doing a great job with your "tiny comma of life." What a smart, faithful little girl!

Melissa said...

That last sentence is so insightful, Bethany. There's definitely importance in the comma during the short time we have our children with us daily. But in the midst of providing a haven and creating memories & traditions, I don't want to fail to teach mine that home doesn't compare to Home.

Goat said...

I don't want my hair to smell like dog hair either har har har.

She sees the big picture. I don't think the big picture invalidates the details. Different side of the coin. each of us has a preferred side of the coin and are surprised at the cogency of the other perspective. I love Emma's long-sightedness into heaven and your attention to a life well lived.

Ben and Rachelle said...

I love how Emma can have that perspective at her age. I also know that even though there's a bigger picture out there, we still have to make the most out of our time here, so that we really can hear "well done, good & faithful servant". And you do an awesome job at your job!