The other day my twelve year old son did something that made me think, he has great conversation ability that you think that he is quite grown up but in actual fact, he is still a child.
It was the day after my birthday and I had spent the entire morning cooking and baking up a storm. I had been working the day before so had not had the opportunity to treat them to my time or cook as I had wanted to. I made up for it the next day. I woke up really early to make breakfast, prep for lunch and bake the cake. By the time I was done it was breakfast time.
We shared breakfast and got caught up in housework that I found myself sitting back to have lunch at 5pm. My son watched me eat quietly for a while and then he asked me something. “Mum, may I have a piece of your cake?” I looked at him and a number of thoughts ran through my mind including “whose birthday is it? Have I made you wait that long? It was five something after all. Oh Child!”
I looked at him for a moment thinking of how young he looked when he asked that. “Sure!” I said and thought, “He is still a child. My child. ” and my heart overflowed with warmth toward him in that moment.
Later as I was thinking about this I remembered a certain occasion when my then nineteen year old son had done something that made me have this very thought. That he may be almost a foot taller than me, speak deeper than me and be living by himself but he is still a child, my child at heart. We had taken a weekend away to the Kenyan coast and were spending a morning at the beach. The kids had left me with their shoes and belongings and run off to play in the water. I sat on the beach to watch, alternating my gaze between them, the ocean and the skies. At one point, my older son ran up to me holding something out to me in his hand. When he reached me he gently placed something in my open palm and then he ran off back into the water. I looked down and saw this shell. Not a perfect shell by any standard, but a perfect gesture. Hot tears filled my eyes as my heart was overwhelmed by his sweet gesture.
These kids, the are still kids. They may be twelve and twenty now but they are still kids. My kids.
The other day as I read the scripture below, I thought could this be how God sees us? That though we may talk and even behave like we are in control and responsible for our lives, He knows different. Is this why we remain His children even as we mature spiritually?
‘You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them,
because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ‘
1 John 4:4 (NIV)