Words every parent has heard a thousand times. “Watch me!” Be it on the playground, at the swimming pool, or soaring from the top bunk, it’s in a child’s nature to want an audience of their biggest fans. My middle child – who is consequently already riddled with scars – is famous for crying out “Watch me fly!” while already midair. He did it once from a hospital bed in the ER, before we’d even seen the doctor about the stitches he needed from his most recent flight. “Watch me!”
I’ll be honest: I don’t always want to watch. “Do you want to watch me draw?” Not particularly. I’ve got two other kids and dinner and laundry and dishes and Facebook all calling my name, and I forgot to put deodorant on today. “Will you watch me build with my Legos?” Do I have to? There’s not much for me to do, just sit there and NOT look at my iPhone. “Watch me go across the monkey bars for the 8 billionth time!” Dude, I brought you to the park so you could play over there and I could sit, untouched, over here. I don’t say these things, of course. I watch. I’m not always excited to watch, but I try to just sit and watch. And when I watch, I love what I see.
Seeing and watching are two different things. Watching is just acknowledging what is happening in the moment right before you. Seeing is looking past the present and dreaming about how it will lead to the future. A spectator watches a gymnastics competition, a mother sees the next Olympic gold medalist. A spectator watches a child play with Legos, a mother sees an award-winning architect. A teacher watches a student give their first speech to the class, a mother sees the future president of the United States. Conversely, a spectator sees a child walking on their toes or not speaking very much, and a mother will see autism. We mothers, we parents, look at our children and apply these moments in a sweeping blanket to their entire future. It’s a blessing and a curse, when we let worry creep into our dreams, but no one can see the potential in a child like a parent.
What, then, does God see when He watches us? When we stumbled, when we failed, when we cowered in guilt and shame, did He not look at us and SEE the future, what He created us to be? Does He not smile knowingly when we exclaim in middle school that we could never be missionaries? What did His face look like when others looked at the small, unassuming baby born in a barn and turned their nose up at his circumstances? Didn’t Mary know when Jesus was a child, carrying on conversations in the temple, that one day His words would be preached from the same pulpit? The most powerful scene in all of The Passion, for me, is when Mary, mother of Jesus, is watching her son, battered, bleeding, and broken, stumble through the crowd and she flashes back to him falling as a young boy. God gives us the ability to see in our children, not to create a competitive edge, but to equip us to support, catch, encourage, and guide our children.
It is HARD to take three kids to swimming lessons. HARD. Especially when the lessons aren’t at the same time, or in the same pool, and you’ve got two kids to entertain (or keep from “flying” into the pool) while another one is learning. You want to celebrate each stroke while simultaneously zone out for the 30 minutes that someone else is entertaining your child. Every summer, my boys take swimming lessons, and every summer, I consider just buying them adult-sized life jackets because it’s so dang hard to juggle timing, snacks, boredom, a stroller, towels, goggles, wet carseats and WATCHING. But then I see something: my oldest son, built like a pool noodle, gliding through the water with speed and precision, reaching the edge before anyone else, kicking with power and intent. That’s right, my son is the next Michael Phelps. You laugh, but Michael Phelps’ own mother dragged three kids to swim lessons, Michael Phelps’ own mother saw her son take to water like a fish, and Michael Phelps’ own mother saw a future champion in the long-legged boy she was raising. At some point, Michael Phelps’ mother looked up from her word search (I’m guessing) and started SEEING her son’s talent.
David, in the Bible, was a big deal. He was king. He was wealthy. He was a mighty warrior and successful leader of armies. He got the ladies. From his lineage came Jesus Christ. David was a chosen man of God whose actions made history and influenced the world around him. Did anyone see that when he spent each day in the field, tending to sheep as a teenager? Did his mother know that when David sang idly in the fields, he was preparing his praises to become Psalms? Did his mother know that his slingshot, barely a toy in the hands of her young boy, would bring down giants and raise up a nation? When David came home and told tales of killing a lion and a bear with his hands, did his mother see that God was strengthening a soldier, a man who would kill his tens of thousands? When it came time to seek out a new king, no one even thought to present David as an option. This boy who spent his days singing, protecting flocks, playing with slingshots. This boy who was, while seemingly going about mundane tasks, being prepared to be a KING.
Our children have purposes. They were perfected in the womb. They have a future. Our children are fearfully and wonderfully made. They were made with intention, with a destiny that we could never dream up on our own. We do not get to decide their destiny (believe me, I wish I could!), but we are charged with the sobering responsibility to shape them in preparation for it. I can beg God all I want to not to call my oldest into ministry (it’s a tough life, yo), but that won’t change His plans for my boy, or His plans to change the world through my boy. I can want to shield and protect him from the world all I want, but that will only hinder what God wants to do through him. When he was about to start kindergarten in – gasp! – public school, I was sobbing, as any mommy would. I was terrified, I was sad. I cried out to God “Lord, he’s about to go out into the WORLD!” And God, clear as day, said to me, right there in my car amongst my snotty and undignified tears, “That’s what I created him for.” Boom. So let’s stop just watching them. Let’s open ourselves to see God’s purpose for them, let’s listen to the Holy Spirit and make ourselves available to their future. To see the musicians banging on pots and pans, to see the pastors praying fervently for their friend’s missing dog, to see the artists covered in eyeliner, to see the policemen protecting their siblings on the playground. Thank God that He has given us an inside track on how to pray for our children, for their future, for their purpose. And thank God that He sees so much more in us when He watches.
Side note, I’m still praying for baby girl, unless God can find a way to use an obsession with Barney for His glory.
