A Tangled Mess

A Tangled Mess

It’s so fun to watch babies learn, isn’t it?  Our little one is at the stage where he is almost crawling but not quite.  He babbles all these adorable sounds.  He sits and digs through his small bucket of toys (always choosing the free, used butter lid over the expensive learning toys), he opens and closes drawers over and over again, he finds his fingers and toes and intrinsically plays with them—it’s just fascinating! Every once in a while he gets stuck, ya know, in a half crawl half sit position, or sometimes he gets himself in a little situation where he is bound to get mildly hurt.  It takes everything I have not to jump up and save him from that board book that he is about to pull onto himself, or from closing that drawer on his tiny fingers, or immediately untangle his tangled legs—but I know if I do he won’t understand the cause and effect r develop the gross motor skills to untangle his own legs.  I know it is for his own good that I stand back and allow him to grow. 

Well today I was sitting at the table, eating this delicious apple crumb desert that my oldest daughter made (it is not a good thing to have a daughter that loves to make delicious deserts and leave them lying around), anyway there I was sitting, savoring this yummy apple crumb and the baby sweetly played under the table at my feet.  Then he got his legs all tangle up in the leg of the chair.  For a long, very long, time he tried to get himself unstuck.  It was painful to watch!  I wanted to just gently move the chair, only by a few inches—that’s all it needed, to help him get out of that sticky mess he got himself in.  But I knew better.  I knew this was important for him. 

I pondered this with every bite of my yummy sweet and then I began thinking about God’s love for us, we are his children, and how painful it must be for God to watch us get ourselves all tangled up in messes.  Often times, we get ourselves deep into it too! He must want to swoop down and save us from ourselves! But just like we, as parents, see the big picture—our children must learn to grow and growth makes them stronger, God must feel this way about us also. 

After a bit of time I got up and gently moved that chair back, kissed my baby on the head, and whispered, “I love you, child.”

Galatians 3:26 - For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.