The baby room is still my favorite. It has changed a good bit in the 6 months I've been here. Six months is like a lifetime in baby development time. It's gone from a room with sleeping babies to a mini zoo. I never know what will be going on in there, I just know to be prepared to catch a baby. I remember the days when my babies were the age that you never sat down because they never stopped. Now I am just experiencing it multiplied by 8. Bless it.
They are SO busy. Busy sitting up. Busy crawling. Busy scooting. Busy pulling up. Busy cruising along the bookshelves. And busy falling. It is always like being in one of those slow motion movie scenes when you see a baby start to fall. You start to move to catch them, but your body morphs into slo-mo, yet somehow they quickly fall to the ground, usually making sure to bump their head on a hard surface nearby. I told the teachers we need to just move that class to the triage unit of the ER. They are an accident waiting to happen!!
Despite the anxiety caused by these new developments, it is so exciting to watch! It has always been so amazing to me how one day they just do something they've never done before. And it's really fun to watch their face when they realize they've done something they couldn't do before. Until they fall and cry of course.
All of this change and busyness and excitement has made me think about the spiritual journey we take as Christians. Mostly it has made me think about how much we try to skip this phase. We decide to follow Jesus and expect that we will wake up the next morning and have it all together. I think we've all watched too many Disney movies and expect that some fairy is going to come sprinkle magic fairy dust and make us perfect. Except of course we learn, we don't believe in magic. :) And yet, we act like that is how God changes us.
The truth is that the Holy Spirit moves in, but we have to decide to let it grow us. A baby starts crawling because it is the next step in his/her development. But it's not easy. There are days, weeks, even months when a baby struggles to get on all fours. Then, they bounce a while. They know they are supposed to be moving, but they just can't get it going. The truth is, we know that we are now supposed to be full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. And yet, just like a baby sometimes decides it is easier to cry and get picked up than to work on the crawling, we decide it is easier to follow our natural instincts. To be mean, cranky, stressed, impatient and out of control. It's what we know.
We all face this struggle. The difference for us is that we are able to hide it. We are able to put on a smile when we're ready to bite somebody's head off. We learn to say the right things, even if they are not anywhere near how we feel. And I guess it makes us all feel better to get together and pretend that we're all good, but when we do that, we're missing out on growing.
I like to imagine that if my babies could talk their conversation would go something like this:
Baby 1: "Man this sitting up stuff is hard! I can do it, but then I just fall forward everytime!"
Baby2: "I know what ya mean. I've pulled up on that wooden kitchen set 4 times and I've fallen and knocked myself out every time. I think I have a concussion, man."
Baby 3: "I fell and hit the rocking chair and that crazy lady just watched me do it."
The point I'm trying to make (I really do usually have one, it just takes me a while to get there :), is that we should see our church family (all of the church, not just the ones in our building) as our buddies in the baby room. We are all working on things, things that are hard for us and things that we really mess up at sometimes. Sometimes it is painful and messy and not at all comfortable. We've not perfected anything yet. The key is that we are trying. I've yet to see a healthy baby with no developmental problems decide that they can't do the walking thing perfect yet, so they just won't try. It's just understood that they will fall, but then they will get back up.
What is also understood is that the parents and caregivers of those children do not expect perfection. In fact we cheer and applaud every attempt. And yet, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are often waiting to attack each other and any attempt at growth. Without verbalizing it, we send the message loud and clear, "Come when you've figured it out. We don't really have time for your stumbling." We all know people who think that criticizing is their spiritual gift. It's not, y'all. We all have a responsibility to teach and admonish each other and that includes calling each other out on inappropriate behavior. But, we are to do that in love and by example. We are to do it because we want our brother or sister to go stronger in their walk, not because it makes us feel better about how weak ours is.
Wherever we are in our walk, we are to keep getting stronger. If you are in the baby steps stage just struggling to get to your feet, keep trying. You will get there. If you are walking, but need more support than others, let people support you until you're strong enough to stand on your own. If you're moving slow, learn as much as you can along the way. If you're a strong walker, grab someone by the hand and help them along. No matter where we are we all have the same goal: to run.
- Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
- ~Hebrews 12:1
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