I have a child who is the silent-type. One thing I know about the silent-types: just because the lips aren't moving doesn't mean the mind isn't churning. Sometimes everything lines up just right and words come up from the deep, feelings and thoughts and dreams. Desires.
I am floored at the depth, and also scared by the holiness, of thoughts that percolated so long.
The children always see it how it is, silent-type or not, and adults rarely give them credit for this.
I want to walk fearless but I bumble along and the silent-type sees. Maybe more than others, silent-types see your mistakes and what I fear is that down in the recesses of memory, all that is stored are the mistakes.
I appreciate the silence though, in regards to my multiple failings.
The one desire that keeps me most humble is that my children would walk in the truth. That they would love more than I love, serve more than I serve, live more than I live.
And the fear of all my mistakes can threaten to temper that desire.
I fear that my life might be an inoculation against real faith - that a lukewarmness would settle over silently and no heat would rekindle the flame of a mother's prayer -
that they would walk in the truth;
that they would long for Jesus more than anything;
that their life would not be too safe or too dry or too sterile.
But I don't live out of fear and can't love out of a desire for perfection - in myself or others. I can only bumble, stumbling, getting up again to the bumpy road.
It's a fearful thing to love someone so much. It's a godly fear that keeps me in repentance. It's hope that doesn't disappoint, even a hope that my children will climb the mountains of my mistakes and see more clearly through lessons they've seen me learn.
I'm so thankful for the mutual sanctification that comes in a family.
For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. {3Jo 1:3-4 NKJV}
Writing with Amanda on these prompts for July.