Life would be so easy if it were to go exactly as we imagined it might go. However I have learned so far that life has a mind of its own.
Success in love and companionship, success in environment, success in doing what one loves doing this is true success, yes? This is how I define it. Others define it by what they have acquired or how much money they have made. This is important too, because it’s important to them. But for me that’s not what I have found as success.
I, in fact watch the oldest as he is ready to fly and I admire that he has his own ideas and it has me questioning my own ideas and how I so easily get comfortable in what I know and then become afraid to try anything different. I think in checkers it’s called a stale mate when the player is unable to move. I often feel paralyzed in life itself. My head knows it’s all my fault that nobody can move me but myself. Maybe sometimes we are given these gifts of children to also learn from them. By watching them and not stopping them, not getting in their way. Not putting our ideas on them but letting them find their own ideas become who they are meant to be.
This past week we watched two little ones. The little girl, she is so small but so very mighty in many ways. She knows she is strong, she knows she can do 8 cartwheels in a row and very well, she knows she is awesome, she knows she is pretty, she has more confidence in that little body, like the confidence of 100 people. She has parents who encourage her, who tell her she’s got this. She has no fear. She just does what she imagines she can do. It’s really quite amazing to meet a little person like this. Again learning from little lives who see the world as their oyster.
God shows me this example by creating me and then giving me free will to choose the path I will choose. Sometimes I feel like fear shows itself in control wanting to control the outcome because one doesn’t want the person they love to feel pain, the pain of life. But the pain. It must be felt. It’s important. It’s hard but very important. And in this way I’m glad I have a God who can worry for me. Although truth be told, I’m not very good at giving Him my worry.