we are only some of what we will be
In the morning, we friends gather on Zoom, collecting on a screen the way we once surrounded coffee shop tables, dropping handbags on the floor, dragging over extra chairs, only now new windows open into presence in front of us like blinking eyes, and here I sit at home with my wet-from-the-shower hair, and we all feel scrubbed and fading. We talk honestly, more about becoming than doing, like observers in the garden noticing new growth–the strength of roots, the reach of limbs, the generosity of new buds. Admittedly, we are not the Gardener—out loud we acknowledge this, and still we build each other as we speak. We are canopy trees, sharing resources at the root.
Crouched at our computers, we tell the truth about our brokenness. We are more here than a snapshot; we are skin and bone and blood; we are souls, new, and also old. So it is with the spaces God makes, the places where people become shelter–the roof, the walls, the solid floor, heart hewn. “I am learning to offer myself more grace,” one friend says, “because I am only still becoming, because I realize I will never fully arrive. I am always still growing. And I am learning to offer that same grace to other people too, even when I don’t understand their attitudes or their opinions. They are incomplete too; they are changing, as I am.”
In her words I find an echo of something, a clue, a slice of a thought from before, maybe hours gone by, maybe days, something I’ve heard and also something I’ve witnessed.
As a full-time mother of three teens–in my heart now I hear Riley carefully noting that she has eclipsed that word, teen, already–I am a people-builder. I am an amateur, tending a wild patch of growing humans, expending myself ruthlessly against weeds, bending down to nurture new shoots. It’s as though God has given me a stretch of ground and some seeds and beckoned me to work beside him. I’m reminded of the way my mother began training me to cook, putting miniature spoons in my hands, tiny mixing bowls, a little potholder and mitt. I had a child-sized oven for bite-sized cakes. She Baked; I baked. This sowing matters so much, God shows me hand-over-hand. It’s not my work; it’s his work through me, and some hours pass as long sighs, full of wondering over lethargy and sullenness: Why, with all the careful attention, does this child still persist in such a way? Parenting teens feels like doing detective work on a roller coaster.
I catch glimpses of who my kids will be and how they’re still becoming: Zoe finds me, not five minutes after I have said I miss hugging people, and sweeps me into her arms, hanging on like she has all the time in the world. After dinner, she stands at the sink, washing dishes. In the middle of a day, we sip coffee and she laughs so easily I forget the hours when she hides herself away in her room or slumps at the dinner table with nothing to say. Riley loves so well she shines; she serves with joy; she works with thorough and deliberate attention. But sometimes her criticism of her brother surprises me. Her new rituals catch me off-guard, like blight on tender leaves. Adam learns with acuity, rapidly acquiring new skills and responding to details. I discover his tenderness and good humor, his deep spirituality. But in the afternoon, he plays the same phrase of an old VeggieTales tune so many times it wears a groove in my mind. He trills and repeats phrases and wears a wandering pathway in the linoleum and the carpet. I sink into prayer, especially when I find myself noticing more of what still begs training than what shows evidence of progress, and God holds me together with gentle Truth:
To be a child is to be an immature version of yourself.
I hold this carefully, lift it up like lenses to help me see.
“What if,” my friend is asking, “we could remember that we are all only still figuring things out? What if we could handle ourselves and each other with that kind of compassion?”
We are immature versions of ourselves, or, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul, “Friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up (1 John 3:2 MSG)!” I nod as she speaks because the words ring true. We are some of what we will be, and still, we are becoming. To live is to become, no matter how slowly. And to live in Christ is to become like Him. What if, I wonder. What if I allowed other humans the same grace for growth that God leads me to give my children? And isn’t He now, on this hallowed ground, asking me to do so? The bush burns, the world burns, but where God lives, it doesn’t burn up.
