i’ve had a lot of visitors lately. the good kind, no worries (except the man that wanted to sell me meat out of the back of his van. “at cost” of course, but alas i informed him we have half a cow coming in just a few weeks).
the first of the visitors was my friend kathi (and her husband kevin). i love them because of the great conversation. i have very few friends with whom convesation is lackluster, now that i think about it. but i was verbally stimulated by KK on end and absolutely loved it.
it seemed that much of our conversation seemed to return to babies, mothering and birth. i tried to switch gears so that i wasn’t one of “those people”, but we always returned. in my defense, i think KK has been doing a lot of thinking on her own and was curious, wanting to hear about my experience. so we talked and talked and talked. we talked about what it means to be a parent and whatnot.
then kathi shared something that i’m going to repeat & attribute 3 times and claim as my own. she said she and her hubby didn’t want to speak negatively about their child(ren). they don’t want to speak ill of them. i don’t think that means that you’ll never hear them say “i just wish he’d sleep through the night!” but rather it’s that her faults don’t need to be made public. she was telling me about her thoughts on the power of words (to which i full heartedly agree, even if i’m not so quick to catch my tongue). we also talked about how parenting is a shadow of the relationship of God to person. and God would never talk about his children the way I have heard some parents talk about theirs.
i want my kids to grow up knowing that they are enough. obviously, there’s always room for growth – in all of us. but part of encouraging that is extending grace for where a person is at that moment. mixed with the hope of things to come and the faith that God can work in all people, why wouldn’t i celebrate the person he is right now?