Water is still alive and kicking, but Doc remains worried about his fish. I don't think his unease is just about his pet anymore.
I think he's beginning to find out what PB and I have been trying to shield him from for the past six years. I think he's discovering that we live in a fallen world. Clearly, at his young age he doesn't have even the slightest grasp of what that means. I hardly do at my age.
But I think he's starting to figure out that there's some bad stuff out there and sometimes it happens to very nice people. As a rule, we don't watch the news on TV and we only listen to Christian radio when we are in the car together. I figure there's enough time for my kids to hear about the world's garbage when they get older; I don't need to burden them with it at their tender age.
But some of it still gets through. Like the economy. Everywhere we go it's on everybody's lips. My kids don't understand the causes or ramifications and I certainly can't explain it to them, but they know it sounds bad.
In our family prayer time we're praying for some friends who are going through unspeakably hard times. Seizure. Cancer. Tumor. Transplant. Hospital. These are the words we're trying to explain using the least scary phrases possible.
No wonder my boy who has spent his life viewing the world as a giant adventure is starting to glance around nervously.
I wish I could make it stop. I wish I could snap my fingers and make the world the safe and happy place that has existed in his mind for the past six years, but I can't. PB and I can only do our best to be zealous guardians of his innocence. The gatekeepers shutting out the trash that has no business thrusting itself upon a child.
And then we have to show him. We have to demonstrate that faith in Jesus in the midst of hardship and sadness isn't a plastic smile or an optimistic attitude, but daily living with knees bowed and eyes focused up. We've got to show him that while faith doesn't equal ease it does give us the only peace we'll ever find when the world doesn't make sense.
And then I've got to let go and trust that the One who knows my boy best, loves my boy best and holds his future will actually give him the peace we've been telling him about.
And I'm praying that He'll let Water live a very long time.
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3 comments:
It is really hard trying to shield them yet let them grow. Praying for you!
It's hard. Try as we might we can't block the world out, but giving them a good faith foundation is vital and it sounds like you have that covered in spades.
My oldest is a stress mess sometimes and she is finally at that age where instead of me telling her to go pray she will just look at me and say herself, "okay, I need to go pray." It took me about 38 years to learn that so I'm just glad she got it so soon.
Anyway, this was a great post, very touching.
"daily living with knees bowed and eyes focused up" love. that.
The older my children are getting, the more I grasp that.
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