All this day we have bickered and grumbled because little boys didn’t get in the car when we said it was time to leave. Because little boys, in fact, unbuckled and wandered back into the house to pour their own glasses of milk because they just couldn’t wait for us to give them the water bottles we’d packed to bring out with us; to use the potty because they didn’t do it the first time we asked; to pack a bag of stuffed animals for him and every one of his brothers, because today is a Family Fun Day, and the stuffed animals are in our family, too.
And here we are, after a week filled with one speaking event and three band gigs and a house that bears the overwhelming craziness of it all so, instead of cleaning and catching up and making some dent on the week we left behind and the one we have ahead, we marked today as a Family Fun Day. We’re going to enjoy a day downtown in our city, visiting the Alamo and a park and some other city landmarks.
Except we almost don’t go because of all these not-following-directions-the-way-we-want-them-to children.
It’s only 10 a.m., and already their daddy and I feel exhausted. Family Fun Day, ruined by boys who want to do things their way, that’s what I’m thinking as we pull out of the driveway.
But halfway to downtown, I see it, how we have not been looking with the right eyes today.
If I look with frustration eyes, all I will see is frustration, everywhere. If I look with defeat eyes, all I will see is defeat, everywhere. If I look with expectation eyes, all I will see is failed expectation, everywhere.
Sometimes all it takes is a heart-turning to turn the whole day around.
And it’s an effort, watching a boy who wants to linger at a cool toy-airplane stand, even after we’ve told him to come on five times, and seeing not a disobedient child but a budding scientist interested in the way things work, wondering how that plane can actually fly, how he might make one just like it or better.
And it takes practice, when we’re sitting at that fountain, eating our lunch, and those boys throw rocks and leaves and whatever they can find into a wishing pond and we tell them they should stop so it doesn’t clog the whole thing up and, five minutes later, they forget our instructions, to see not children who deliberately refuse to comply but boys who have wishes to make and no coins to toss.
And it takes strength to walk all that way back to the car and tell little boys to get in and not fly off the handle when they run the sidewalk instead, strength to look on them with eyes that see little boys who had a great Family Fun Day and aren’t quite ready for it to end instead of boys who intentionally choose not to listen to parents.
Seeking wisdom and spiritual maturity and humility, here, means opening heart-eyes to see without assumption, without preconceived notions, without expectation.
How might our families change if we looked with these eyes?
How might the world change if we looked with these eyes?
This is an excerpt from Family on Purpose Episode 1: January: We embrace wisdom. Spiritual Maturity. Humility. This episode will release Dec. 2. To learn more about Family on Purpose, visit the project landing page.
