This past week I was working with a group of elementary students on the topic of self-esteem, asking them to fill in a worksheet with something they could do that they were proud of. It's so much easier for little kids to give you a long list of things they are proud of than it is for adults to do the same.But what most struck me most in that afternoon was was a timid girl who asked me quietly, "Does it have to be something from now or can it be from a long time ago?" I said of course it could be from a long time ago and what was she thinking about? And she replied: "When I was a baby, I didn't know how to walk at all. Then when I was one, I had to try really hard, but by the time I was two, I didn't even have to think about it." I smiled and said "that's great" and she turned to her worksheet and proudly filled in the blank: "good at walking."
By that standard, I'm still a baby in terms of living the Christian life the way I want to. I either don't do it at all, or have to think about it very hard. But I know several older women for whom acting gracefully doesn't seem to take much effort at all. That gives me hope that one day I will be as good at acting gracefully as I am at walking, that it will be so natural I forget to be proud about it at all.
4 comments:
Love your post. Thank you.
You are already walking, my friend. The great gift is that you aren't aware of how naturally it comes.
That is the goal, isn't it, to do it without thinking (aka agonizing) about it at all. At the risk of taking it too far, "Big girl, you almost did it! Come to Papa, come to Papa..." The encouragement over the baby steps is part of it, too.
Loved this one, Beck. Very much.
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