Tuesday, August 16, 2011

"I don't just see the one"

Kaleb's Mama, my mother-in-law, Sweet Sylva Sue (that's what we sometimes call her) absolutely adores her son. And I mean she LOVES him. She prayed for him before he was born that he would be wise beyond his years, and her prayers were truly answered. But no matter how wise- how grown- how mature- he is still her baby. Through 6 and 1/2 years of dating and 6 years of marriage, I can not count the times that we arrived at her house after church on Sunday or after a Friday night ballgame, and she would say "Kaleb, honey, you look tired. You need to get back there and get you some rest." After a while, I started picking at her and saying "I'm tired too!" playing like I wanted her to baby me too. So she did. And we would laugh about it. After that, she began exaggerating her doting over me. But she never stopped it with Kaleb, despite his "eyeing her" (as she says) with those big, brown "I love you, Mama, but I don't need you to tell me when I am tired" eyes.


This past Sunday, we were delighted to get to spend some much needed time with our Sylva (her real name is Sylvia by the way). She joined us for worship at our new church, Hillcrest. We took her to lunch at Lula's on the brick streets, and we headed back to our house for a short visit. As she sat on one end of our reclining couch, her feet propped to match her baby boy at the other end, she got to looking at him. I knew what was coming. Sure enough, "Kaleb, your eyes look tired. You need some rest don't you?" Before he could give her "the look", she added
"Who knows you better than your Mama? Well, maybe Lacy does but. . ." (then she turned to me) "You see, I don't see just the one- the one 28 year old man. I see the 5-year old boy and the 10-year old boy. I see him all the way to now."
Wow- what a neat thought. As she looks at my husband, tall and strong, the man who provides for me and teaches me, she sees him through his ages. She sees her baby, a little boy, a pre-teen. She doesn't just see the one- just the full-grown man. And it made me think of how God must look at us. He doesn't "just see the one" when he looks at us either.


When he looks at me, He sees me before I was born, while he was knitting me together. Then when I was a four-year-old, a purple cow-boy hat wearing ball of energy- that cried and cried those first days of kindergarten, He was there. And when my kindergarten buddy Brock asked me "Where do you go to church?" and I said "I really don't go," and Brock asked, "Then how do you learn about Jesus?" And I wanted Him. I really wanted Him. I knew I wanted to learn about this Jesus. He was there. He watched me swim in the pool, build forts with my neighbors, and when I accepted Him at Bible School in the 5th grade, He was very much there. Stomach aches up all night with Mama, ballgames I won, ballgames I lost, friends that moved away.


Then it hit me. If He looks at me and sees the "little me" all the way up to the me right now- then He also sees the future me- who I will be one day. He knows the roads I have traveled and those I have yet to. How amazing to think of the perspective He has when he gazes on our lives. We are more to Him than who we are in this moment. Though, so often, we are caught up in the present moment, our current circumstances being magnified in our own minds. He, seeing the forest while the tree before us consumes our interest, knows the bigger purpose that circumstantial tree will serve. He is always seeing, always knowing, always viewing us as more than who we are in our "here and now". His omnicience transcends our concept of time and our inability to see outside our immediate surroundings.


He was and is with us, loving us, growing us in His image.




That's 4-year old me on the front left with a broken leg (Easter Egg hunt gone bad). Brock is 3rd from the right on the back row.


Psalm 139
 1 You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.
 7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.
 13 For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.
 19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7vXuslOGQ

1 comment:

  1. Wow... Thanks, Lacy! I often think about how much I love Jonas and even though I've only gotten almost 4 years, I totally see all 4 of them when I look at him... AND I am often amazed at how much more God lives me... It's unbelievable...

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