Miss Lizard

Something that stuns me over and over again is that each of my children, all the way down to the one-month old, is a whole person, whose whole world is centered on their thoughts and senses and emotions just as much as mine is centered on me. And so when my baby or toddler cries, it’s not just a sound effect in the periphery of MY life, causing potential inconvenience or frustration for me. This is a real person who is having a real hang-up in their day. And when one of my teens is missing their friends or wanting to do something fun or to simply have a snack in between meals, it’s not just another tiresome request that will either fit neatly into my own ideas and schedule for the day or cause me annoyance, it’s a real person having a real desire that is as important to them as my own desires or hunger pangs feel for me. The weighty thing about all this is, as parents, we hold all the power here. To be a tyrant or a leader, to say yes or no, to stop and help or to cast aside, to be hospitable or controlling, to be a friend or an exasperation. I feel like this is something that is SO important yet so easy to forget. Our children are people. And not just people, but people who belong first and foremost to God. We must treat them as precious.