Thursday, October 04, 2007

Yep, You!



Do you know how God sees you right now, this moment?

Kind of like my son saw himself after a karate lesson.

A while back, we enrolled our then six-year-old son Noah in a marshal arts course. For about six months Noah learned a few moves, but didn’t really enjoy the class. He found he wasn’t automatically going to be a Ninja or a Power Ranger. Then his instructor gave him a pair of plastic numchucks and attempted to teach him a routine using the fake weapons.

Watching Noah perform that routine was painful. He threw the numchucks this way and that way but never quite in the right direction. I felt I was watching one of those blooper shows where they show all the accidents.

More than once I uttered, “Oh!” while grimacing, hoping his performance would end.

On the ride home that night, I felt it was my job as a mother to rescue his ego and build up his bruised self esteem. I would be gentle and subtle and encouraging.

I began in somewhat of a vague fashion.

“Noah, you worked hard on your numchucks routine.”

My comment was non-committal, yet rang with optimism.

“Yes.”

He obviously knew it was bad.

“Noah, what did you think of your routine?”

I decided to ask him for the obvious answer and then I would begin my job to rebuild his little self image.

“Mom, I was fan-tastic!”

He was serious. He began recounting how his moves were fun and how he really enjoyed using the numchucks.

I laughed and listened with delight as my confident little boy went on and on about how he did his best and it was great.

So how does God see you right now? He is looking at you as you read this and He is saying, Beloved, you are fan-tastic! It doesn’t matter if you hit yourself in the head with numchucks. It doesn’t matter if you screwed up at work or with your family. He is the lover of your soul. Period. So much he gave up His Son to die for you.

Yep, you.

You are fan-tastic!

Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn you.”

4 comments:

dianne in colorado said...

I can relate - my daughter took Tae Kwon Do classes for about seven months. All of her "moves" looked better through her eyes than they did through mine. It is such a blessing that God always sees us in the best possible light - he sees the heart behind the action.

Jan Parrish said...

I love Noah's optimism. What a kid.

Numchucks are actually real weapons. You can take someone out with them.

Danica Favorite said...

Awe, he's such a cutie!!

Pam W said...

Good short story with a real lesson for all of us. Keep up the good work.