The other day, I was in a mood. I was disappointed that a trip I really wanted to take didn’t seem feasible, for a myriad of reasons, and it didn’t take long for the self-pity to spiral out of control. By mid-afternoon, everything seemed to be going wrong, everyone seemed to have it better than me, and nothing seemed to be going my way. At all.
My husband was gone and my children were happily playing together in the living room, so I told them I’d be right back. I went up to our bedroom, crawled under the covers and pondered how miserable my life was. A few minutes into my pity party, my son knocked on my door and then came in, finding me curled up in a fetal position, wiping away tears.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” he asked, touching my face.
“Grown-up stuff, buddy,” I said. “I’m OK. Go play with your sister and I’ll be down in a minute.”
Instead, he crawled in bed beside me. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “If you’re going to be sad, I want to be sad with you.”
I can’t even type those words without tears brimming my eyes.
If you’re going to be sad, I want to be sad with you.
The lessons we can learn from a five-year-old.
I snuggled him close for a few minutes, and then said I felt better — because I did — and so we came back downstairs and made pizza.
Oh to be like him.
What if we did what he did? What if instead of trying to change people, we walked with them in their sadness? What if we got right beside them and suffered along with them? Maybe sometimes the world needs less doing and more just being. Less self-help and more sharing. Maybe I need more of that.
This isn’t the first time Reagan has taught me about grace. One winter night, when Reagan was four, I had a bad cold that was getting worse as the day went progressed. By evening, my head felt like it was going to explode, my throat hurt, and everything ached. I was counting the minutes until Reagan’s bedtime so I could go to bed, when I found him in the bathroom, happily playing in a sink of water that had spilled everywhere, including all over the floor and all over him.
Fueled more by how miserable I felt than Reagan’s actions, I snapped at him. The anger in my tone certainly didn’t match what he did. Sure, it was a bit of a mess, but it was just water (and what little boy doesn’t like playing in water?). Instead of acting upset or hurt by the way I spoke to him — which was certainly within his right — my little boy immediately got a concerned look on his face, put his hands on me and said, “Mommy, you don’t feel well. Let me pray for you.” And then prayed the sweetest, most innocent prayer asking God to make his Mommy feel better.
We sure could learn a lot from children.
I’ve written before about lessons children — ours and others — can teach us. But for the past few months, I keep pondering the verse, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” (Matt. 18:10)
Maybe we’ve had it backwards all along. Maybe children are put on earth to teach us. Maybe we are, in many ways, their students. Maybe, just maybe, the more we pay attention, the more we will learn, from the little ones.
As for the trip I was so upset about skipping, we got creative and decided to go. I decided instead of being sad about what couldn’t happen, to figure out a way to make it happen, and I did. But without the lesson from Reagan, I might have continued to wallow, staying miserable instead of finding a solution.
There are a lot of things we can learn from children.
When I grow up, I want to be just like Reagan.
