Her shoulders slump and her eyes search the floor. She mumbles and turns her back towards me. This little sprite went from fire-in-her-eyes to a stone-cold-countenance in a matter of seconds, all because things didn’t work out as she’d planned.
I could write the script for this downward spiral. This mama is quite familiar with how her little girl handles disappointment. It adds up to hours, maybe days, now that we’ve talked — her in my lap — about how a heart is made to grow, not shrivel, when life gives us twists we don’t expect.
But hours in conversation and dozens of conversations over time don’t necessarily equate to change. We’ve seen itty-bitty baby steps with this one. An inch — a slight lean — in the right direction.
“We have to have the long view,” says Nate, calling me to perspective. “These baby steps are big and one day we’ll look back and see serious growth.”
I don’t know if I buy it, because I’m just like my little girl.
If you asked her about her weak spot, she’d recite the script to you. She doesn’t just know about her gaps, she has begun to study them. Isn’t that the way of human nature?
I see what she’s not and where she needs to grow and I zero in on these things. I pray towards her weakness, as if when she’s finally over that “issue” then she’ll really begin to live. I measure her, albeit subtly. And before I know it, my perspective is dimmed. I move from mother to coach — and when she most needs someone to hold her heart, I’m keeping her time on a stopwatch. [Continue Reading Over here —>]
