Life with Isaac is great and rewarding. I love when I leave for work, how he watches me out the window until I am not in view anymore. I love when he comes up to me and says, "Piggyback wide pwease." I love the really cute things he says like, when he handed Nolan a toy that he dropped, Isaac said, "Thanks me." voicing what he wanted Nolan to say, but not sure what pronoun to use. I love his hugs, cuddles, kisses, and love. I love how he runs and laughs through the house, constantly.
With all the good stuff, there is difficult stuff too. That is how life works. We have had to watch Isaac go through some painful things medically. It was really hard to do, but he is so amazing, he never hardened up, he remained the sweet loving Isaac that we know.
Us adults are not so good at that. We experience pain and we callous up for protection reasons. We raise barriers and keep others out not willing to risk getting hurt. We "toughen" up, shut up, and keep a stiff upper lip not showing those around us who we really are, and what we are really feeling, we do not want to risk rejection, pain, or mockery.
We are so addicted to conditional approval because it is something that is not a handout, it is something deserved. But with all these conditions for the approval of those around us we tire, and then comes the show, then comes the false self, then comes the barriers we put up to protect the real us, the real us that we want to hide because of its weakness and neediness.
But this weak needy self, the real self, is the one whom God loves with NO conditions. We often accuse the church and Christians of being hypocritical, the word hypocrite means actor, one who wears a mask. It was used to refer to those who pretended they were better off than they were, that they did not need help, that they were not weak. I think that we all are a bit hypocritical, whether we are a part of a church or not.
I am trying to learn from Isaac, that it is alright to be who we are, it is alright to be weak and needy as long as I go to God for strength and fulfillment. I am learning to not pretend, to just be me without reservation. That is hard to do because if I present the real me and it is rejected, than that is REAL rejection of the REAL me, not rejection of some false person that wasn't really me in the first place.
But I have to be willing to accept REAL rejection because I should not be looking to those around me for fulfillment, but looking to God, and resting in the fact that he made me to be me, and that is the me that he loves and accepts and already approves of because of Jesus.
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