Hand it over

Our kids can teach us a lot. This one is thanks to my sweet daughter. 

We had gotten through the newborn phase and the crawling phase. She was beginning to discover she could pull herself up and stand longer, then that she could take a few steps! She found more freedom to explore!

She found everything! Pens, pencils, hair, zippers, flowers, sharp objects, glass objects, fragile objects. 

If you have ever been around a baby you know that a baby’s grip is insanely strong and trying to get whatever is in their hand isn’t going to happen without a cat fight. And if what is in their hand can hurt them, you have to find a way they won’t get hurt or get hurt even worse pulling the object closer to them they know you’re taking. 

So you have to somehow talk them into handing it over willingly.

I feel silly even typing that…willingly. Yeah right.

So what we began to do (and it worked better as she got a little older) is to remain very calm, show a lot of focus and interest on what she found, hold our hand out and say “ Thank you so much! That is so cool, my goodness!” And she would be so happy to hand it over and loved how proud of her we were. 

After it got to the point where I could relax just a little bit knowing that if I just hold my hand out and say “thank you” she will give me whatever she has and she’s less likely to get hurt. 

This is when I was really able to see the gift she was giving me. I began to think of how wild this little process we had to come up with to help our daughter not get hurt was. I was thinking if she had found scissors I’d have to remain calm and lovingly be present for her to hold my hand out to say “thank you so much for giving those to me”.

That’s WILD. Scissors. Baby. Calm parent?! Doesn’t add up.

In my fearful pondering, something else began to happen. There are times where I feel like I just got plugged into a light socket and I know I am about to get a message and I better listen. 

I began to think of those scissors instead as something that was worrying me or making me not feel safe, I was the baby, and God was the calm parent. And God’s hand was held out to me and said “Thank You so much for handing this to me.”

That caused a tornado of emotions inside me I wasn’t expecting. I knew how I felt about my daughter, so to put myself in the shoes of the love that I have for her really allowed me to remember how loved I am. And more importantly, I realized I don’t have to carry everything I’ve picked up. Especially the things that have and could hurt me. In that time of my life, my thoughts were my own worst enemy. I imagined being a small, sweet innocent child and handing all of those scary thoughts and painful trappings over to God. And I saw God’s face so proud of me and relieved that I had given those over. I saw the focused love and attention on me. I felt it. And the tears began to flow and they kept flowing for a while. Something in me had been restored. 

Thank You for showing how loved I am, Z