Seeing vs. Slowing

Today’s post is from my sister’s blog. She writes excellent stuff over at Momma’s Musings. Check her out and enjoy this post on “seeing”.

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Today, my Baby climbed up the park structure.  All by herself.  In footy pajamas.

My post-toddler, pre-pre-schooler neatly stacked 27 pairs of underwear.  And left them that way.

My 4 and 3/4’s kid, who is adamant and clear that he is not 4 and 1/2 or 5, but 4 and 3/4’s, reminded his brother to work hard, because a man takes responsibility, after all.

And I got to watch my kindergartener chew vigorously on the end of her pencil, in rapt concentration as she was following her teacher’s instructions in order to draw a scientist working in Antarctica.  Kindergarten is intense.

Anyway, I was struck at the end of this day, how fast it’s all happening, this growing up and getting bigger part of life.  We’re not a busy family, by American social norms anyway, but I can’t stop the rapid growth that is leaping through my children’s brains and bones every single day.

I feel like it’s all the rage right now in Christian spirituality to talk about going slow.  And perhaps this is the needed Word of the Lord for many.

But for me, I just want to see.  Slow is not happening.  Devotion is happening.  Sleep is happening.  Sabbath rest is happening.  Togetherness instead of busyness is happening.

But slow is not happening.  My 3-year-old can whoop me on a scooter race and my 4 and 3/4’s kid can already outrun me.  Life is fast around here.

I can’t change the speed at which 4 children under 6 years of age grow.  It’s a miracle to behold, moment by moment sometimes.  Yesterday, it was diapers.  Today they are drying dishes and memorizing the Nicene Creed.  Amazing.

I can’t make it slow.

But I can see.

Jesus models this for me.  He is always going to this place or to that place, walking here and there, traveling about.  And he is seeing.  He sees wherever he goes.  He looks, notices, attends to with his eyes.  He doesn’t miss what is happening, even in his busyness and comings and goings and growings all around him.

And not only does He see and see clearly, but he is astoundingly accurate in diagnosing heart problems and getting right down deep to the root.  He sees and then he looks all the way down to the very bottom.  And then he casts light, Himself, right onto the situation or the person.  Light in the dark, heart exposed, known.  He sees and He knows.

I want to be a Momma like that.  I cannot slow the natural fastness of my children growing up.  Slowness is not going to be the goal around here anytime soon.  But I can learn to see, to see them and know them.  I can learn from Jesus how to get right down to the heart of it.