I’ve always said that the best gift you could ever give me would be endless time with a massage therapist, therapist. You know, someone who knows both the art of wise counsel and active listening as well as deep tissue massage.
Seriously. Best. Gift. Ever.
The second best gift you could give me is the gift of clearer vision, not for my eyes but for my heart.
I’m easily distracted, like a golden retriever in a tennis ball museum I lose focus on what’s important more often than I care to qualify.
Daily I lose sight of loving my children and husband well in the storm of tasks I set out to accomplish. Suddenly I’ve put something flimsy like laundry or cooking or a good book over the ones I love dearly.
I want the gift of being able to easily say: “hello you, I see you, in this moment, just as you are and I consider you a gift.”
If I had clearer vision, I would have more moments like this:
A few days back we took the kids to the children’s museum, in Seminole about 45 minutes away. I made it a point to keep my phone in my purse and I shared moments of wonder with my kids I’m almost certain I would have otherwise missed.
There is a partial airplane body sticking out the side of the museum for children to climb into and explore. For the first time I think my son Caedmon saw this plane and all the models surrounding it, and “got it.” He was thrilled by his new understanding of “planes!”
For twenty minutes, I was enthralled by him, I saw him in all his blonde hair, blue eyed glory.
He climbed into the pilot’s seat, flipping switches and exclaiming: “I did it!”
He grunted and groaned as he reached for the hundreds of buttons and knobs.
He looked the plane up and down and all around with first time wonder. He 
was taking in this old plane, absorbing every inch into memory and knowledge.
Then down the stairs and around the corner we went and I followed him as he ran up to the fish tanks, most clean and filled with state fish, one empty of fish yet full of trash, the example of a polluted habitat.
He ran from clean tank to clean tank, exclaiming: “A fishy! A fishy!”
When he approached the polluted tank he gasped, looked up and me and yelled: “OH NO! Where fishy? Oh NO!”
He’s already demonstrating time and again a concern for the broken things, the ones in need of love and grace in their imperfection. He carries around a one eyed elephant for heaven’s sake.
This boy, the one I wasn’t sure I was ready for, who came too soon, is the gift we need desperately, time and time again.
As we rejoined our friends and family my heart was full of Caedmon and I knew that I had found a gift in our moments. The sort that would change the way I saw him, that caused me to praise God for the gift he was to our life.
Any time I drop the scales of busyness off of the eyes of my heart and can say “hello you, I see you” to someone I love I feel my tank charge up fully, quickly.
Dear God I pray that you will increase my gift of sight, to breathe in your beauty in the people you have given me and those you have yet to put in my path.
May the busyness of the life start to fade away in the light of seeing your children through your eyes.