Keeping an Eye on the Eternal

"But why do we have to paint it again?" One of our independent thinkers was balking at the idea of giving her pencil jar project another coat of decoupage -- a step that, while protecting her colorful work for years of use, would in the end, require her to wait the equivalent of a lifetime (to this poor child) before she could fill it with her bright new pencils and proudly display it on her desk. She'd done a beautiful job and my goal was to preserve that. She'd done a beautiful job and she wanted to implement it, as quickly as possible. I decided to forego the second coat. Hey, if it works, great; if it doesn't, maybe she'll learn a little lesson about things worth doing being worth doing well. It's just a simple pencil holder, right? That's what I told myself anyway.

The truth is, there was a part of me that wanted to be right. I wanted this child to look at me and me and say, "Ya know what, Gramma, I trust your judgment. You seem to know what you're doing here; you came up with this idea, so I have to do things your way. Besides, I just love you. I think you're wonderful. I'm gonna always listen to you." Imagine all our children and grandchildren saying something like that -- and meaning it! (Maybe even our spouses, too!) Life would flow along so much more smoothly if those we care for would just trust us. Or, if the people who are poised to learn from us would follow our instruction, believing we know what we're doing. But, it doesn't always happen that way, and the feelings we have when we meet with resistance from those under our mentorship and supervision, can be as damaging -- even moreso -- as the resistance itself.

That's what God, and failure, and life has taught me. If I'd been teaching one of my children how to slather clearcoat all over the outside of a pencil jar twenty-five years ago, I would have insisted, "You have to do it this way." And when met with resistance, I would have become frustrated and annoyed, probably even telling him or her to "just throw it out" if they weren't going to follow instructions. (Yeah, I was that person.) And the project, completed or not, would have come to be nothing more than an awful reminder of my anger and inflexibility, my need to be important and idolized by my children. But those who are placed in our lives -- whether to learn or teach or be our peers -- are not placed there to validate us. Years ago, I lacked validation. That lack of knowing who I was and what made me valuable, caused me to seek and, sometimes even, demand validation from those around me. I know now, my identity is in Christ; He is my validation.

The current quarantine situation has got me teaching at home again. I am enjoying most of those moments. However, there have been periods of frustration -- days when she is just not feeling it, days when I am just not feeling it, concepts which her brain is simply not ready to connect the dots. I could get upset. I could butt heads with this child all day long. Or, I can back up, regroup, and try again. I could let my husband or one of the older children take a shot at it; or, maybe, try a different approach, or no approach at all -- just leave it for another day. I have options available. But first, I pray. I don't want to tackle this responsibility with impure motives. I don't want the success or failure of the day to rest on me. I want this to be about the fulfillment of God's purpose and plan; I want God to receive the glory in all of this.

It's almost as if God was telling me years ago, how to coat my pencil jar -- slowly, gently, with love and patience, grace and mercy, beauty and an eye on the eternal; but I insisted on getting right to it. Get it done fast, put a check in the box, no hiccoughs; get it done so I could proudly display it as my own work. My Father, in His infinite wisdom and holiness, kept at it. Not with the urgency and self-centeredness I was wielding, but with the very tools He was trying to teach me to use: gentleness, patience, grace, mercy, beauty. He modeled them for me. And, by His grace, I can model them for others.