It was a good day, October 7th.
The more days I have with these kids, the more I learn how inevitable some "bad" days are.
Of course, "bad" is used loosely, really. There is much good to be thankful for even on the days of rolled eyes and foul attitudes and failed attitude adjustments and clingy kindergartners demanding you "look!" every seven seconds.
But October 7th was not one of those days.
It's easier to give thanks and soak up the blessing for the sharing when I'm breathing in fall air, sipping away sweet afternoon refreshments and skipping down sidewalks. Turns out life is sweeter when I'm not so quick to cut moments short by being...well, short.
It helped that on this day the kindergartner wasn't competing with anything or anyone for my attention-- nor I, hers. Undivided attention, you are so illusive and grand.
She jumped in the car that Friday afternoon (Farm Day!). Stuffed chicken in arms, all cowgirl chic, she immediately took to reminding me, "It's special snack day!" (we're in the process of coming up with a cooler name...).
"… don't you remember, Sadie?!"
She's afraid I forgot. Her excited question resonates deeply with me. It smacks of that insecurity I'm convinced affects us all at some point-- or at many points. It is the fear that the one in charge forgot about what means the most to us.
But I had remembered.
"I'll give you a choice, Camille. It is totally your decision. We can go to Chick fil A for our usual ice cream cone or we can go to a place I know downtown. It's like the bakery I've shown you before but also has games and tables next to big windows to see outside."
She doesn't even hesitate.
"Well, I wanna try your place!"
The girl that has to be persuaded into everything now up for anything? I don't question it. "Community Bakery, here we come!" I say pulling out of the carpool line.
She mimics, "here. we. come!"
(I laugh with her delight even as I consider what a responsibility it is to live so much life around a 5 year old sponge. It's cute when she uses similar expressions of excitement, but what else of my words and attitudes might she be repeating?)
Her continued exuberance brings me necessarily back to the moment. "We're having a girls night! ...right Sadie?"
Gone were the complaints of Thursday afternoon when she learned that her brothers were invited to a party that would leave her abandoned on this Friday night. This "abandoned" Friday, she informed me, was our "BEST DAY YET!" One thing led to another and before I knew it we were home painting our nails and not sweating the laundry, chatting about the exhausting fun we'd had all afternoon at the bakery, the "government's house" (the governors mansion), at my house packing a weekend bag.
You might say that her initial disappointment gave way to our sweetest moments together yet.
I often say nannying is the best gig, but it isn't at all about the special snack days (...cooler name still pending). It's about the multitude of teaching moments and what I have to learn from them. Children have a way of pointing out that which we adults seem almost determined to miss altogether. My most sincere prayer is that God would humble me ever more to pay attention, to learn the lessons.
The way is unknown to this elementary kid. I don't know the details of the future and when life doesn't shape up the way I'd envisioned, it's often tempting to believe God's forgotten altogether.
Some days it feels like everyone else got invited to the party and though it seems silly to put ink to that thought (what with the family and the friends and the very best nannying gig), the comparison game nonetheless results in disappointment that has a funny way of making a girl feel forgotten.
Could it be that our initial disappointment is really an invitation to deep joy? An invitation to the sweetest moments yet? When we rush the moments are we really just holding on to the fear that we've been forgotten and overlooked-- afraid to hope in the possibility of an altogether more satisfying outcome, divinely orchestrated?
He's made it our choice and He won't force our hand. We can take part in the joy, take advantage of the ways life isn't what we'd planned, but only if we care to take the chance of believing there's a better way than we're seeing.
We can trek on down to the metaphorical Community Bakery, trusting his suggestion, knowing nothing but that it's different from what we've done or seen or dreamed before.
Or, we can safely stick to the Chick fil A vanilla scoop we know to enjoy-- all the while, in the back of our minds, believing that somewhere else, someone else is unfairly getting a better deal and we've been just plain left out.
I just don't want to miss the chutes and ladders, the checkers with a new friend, the candyland, the mini chocolate chip cookies, the petit-fours, the hazelnut coffee, the friendly strangers, the adventures of homes explored, the nail painting-- just because I knew of a safer option where I could hold onto the grudge that my day wasn't comparing to my brothers'.
If we're honest it can feel pretty good to wallow in losing the comparison game, believing everyone else gets/has/is perfect. Because it's harder to risk embracing the unknown and pursue what truly, ultimately satisfies.
God stands ready with incomparable, unprecedented joy for those willing to believe that He remembers His promises and that our disappointment will ultimately give way to our best days yet.
I continue to ask the Lord to deepen my belief in the trustworthiness of His recommendation. I want the sweet courage of the 5 year old proclaiming,
"I wanna try your place."
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
