My daughter lives in two parallel worlds. All kids do, I suppose. Natalee--who is 3--wakes up every morning with one foot in two distinct dimensions. On one hand, she is larger than life. She isn't quite aware that she's just three years old, 33 pounds and three feet tall. In her mind, she could take on the world...no obstacle is too large for her. She proceeds with her day in this mindset, arguing with the giant adults who stand in her way and steamrolling through challenges without breaking a sweat.
On the other hand, my toddler has moments when her size is at the forefront of her mind. When she needs me to lift her up to reach something from a high cupboard or when she needs the stool to brush her teeth, she is painfully aware that she is the smallest person in the house. Every now and then, Natalee will wake in the morning and proclaim 'Look Mommy, I growed while I was sleeping..look my arms are longer!" Her world is constantly shifting in an upward fashion, literally upward where she can see the tops of tables, reach the counter-tops and fill boxes with her now-too-small shoes and clothes. I can see glee on her face when she recognizes the way her body is morphing all the time.
This morning, Natalee had one of those moments when she once again felt her small stature. She came bursting in the room and insisted that her hands had definitely grown last night...and Natalee wanted to show me just how big they were! Since my body stays relatively the same from day to day, I am a good compass on which to compare her own. So she grabbed my hand, and slapped hers up to mine in an effort to illustrated just how much bigger hers had become. Indeed, they had grown:) I wrapped my two hands around her smallish-but-definitely-growing hands, burying them so that they were no longer visible. Natalee complained 'Don't cover my hands Mommy!' I replied 'Don't worry baby....your hands are still under mine, see?'
Covering.....everything still there, just covered. It reminded me of how the Lord covers me all the time. I am still there, underneath, with all my flaws and shortcomings and yet I am constantly covered by His grace and mercy. Smoothing the rough edges, minimizing the flaws, building up the good so that eventually it will overcome the messy stuff that seems so prevalent each day. Maybe adults exist in the same two dimensions that toddlers do...maybe we never grow out of it. Fully feeling our size and our small stature but still thinking we can take on the world. With the covering of a Father, we can. I suppose it's not something we can outgrow. If we strip away all the years and all the junk, we are all just children desperate for the love of a Father, for the support and the covering of a Parent who will care for us eternally.
