Saturday, December 13, 2014

My Not-So-Little Man And His Tree



A mother, more than any other human being on the planet, knows the ins and outs of her child.

She knows the great, the ugly, the glorious, and the devastating.

She_knows_it_all.

This boy of mine is my firstborn.

And because he's my first, he is the one that often brings me to those moments of total loss, without a clue as to how to move either of us forward into the next moment.

He is my greatest challenge, not because he is a difficult child, but because together him and I continually find ourselves in unknown territory.

He is also my great, great, great delight.

When I think about this kid, my insides feel all giddy, my cheeks hurt from smiling, and my heart aches joy from the fact that I get the privilege of calling him Mine.





Of all our kiddos he lingers long on all the words that come out of my mouth towards him. You can see all over his face the way his heart lights up when I tell him that the Spirit is indeed at work in his life.

Of all of our kids he takes the most initiative.

Of all our kids, he is the most determined, the hardest worker, the one with the most ideas (except for maybe the Spunky Girl who truly has "the best" idea for everything, according to herself.. Her ideas are always over the top and usually involve hot chocolate, sparkles, and mini tea cups. My boys' ideas are a bit more on the practical side.)

Of all the kids he talks to me often of his sin and the way he longs for the Lord to do a mighty work in him.

Of all the kids he's the one who can't go to sleep at night until he's read a bit of his Bible.

He's a seriously cool kid.

This boy of mine works hard at his school work but I also know that it's not really his thing so I try hard each day to help him to be done by noon.

And when he's turned the last page of whatever book he happens to be reading, he tucks it into the drawer by his desk, runs to the sunroom to grab his coat, and flies out the front door.

The other day as he was putting on his coat he called to me across to the kitchen,

"Hey Mom, I think I'm going to find myself a tree."

I thought nothing of it.

"Sounds good. See ya."

Twenty minutes later the kid shows up at the front door with a tree...

A REAL, FULL-SIZE TREE.

He chopped it down himself  in the forest on the other side of the farm with the tree saw. He loaded it up in the golf cart, then carried it up to his room.

He even tied strings on his matchbox cars and made himself his own ornaments.

That's my boy. 




He's been talking with his Papa and I about becoming a carpenter.

I pray for this boy of ours hourly...

I pray that whatever he ends up doing with his life, that he would find what brings him the most joy... because as he finds his joy, he will also know God's pleasure most deeply.

Love this kid.



Truly, truly...

LOVE_THIS_KID.