I was lost, I can admit that. But I wasn’t scared. I was seventeen years old. I had already lived more experiences than many people do in an entire lifetime, but I still had my lifetime ahead of me. I solemnly gazed outside my second story window, the same window I shot birds from with my BB gun as a youngster, the same window I repelled out of with bed sheets I had tied together as a kid, the same window I had aimlessly pondered from over and over again. It overlooked several acres of farmland that my family did not own. An old metal workshop hunched below to my left. This is where I admired my dad’s artistic touch in welding. “Don’t look at the light,” he would repeatedly warn me. Stacks of old metal scraps littered the yard, and to the right was the rugged wooden cellar. (I wonder if the salamanders still live there?) I had stood on its top so many times, loving the lift it gave me, allowing me to feel bigger than I really was. The sky always seemed to fade into the eternities from that window, endless.
Here I was, seventeen and lost in life, fearlessly searching for answers. I needed them, but I didn’t even know which questions to ask. I had no direction. And then suddenly I just knew. There, at my window, lost in the eternal horizon, I knew. I knew that in my life, raising my children would be the most important work I would ever do.
I’ve revisited this memory time and time again in my life. I remembered it while doing dishes and watching from my kitchen window as my two year old daughter sat all alone on a make shift, motionless swing, trying desperately to get the swing to engage by shuffling her feet mid air. She had no playmate to push her.
I remembered it when my first son was born. They placed him on my chest and his eyes met mine. Children have a way of looking straight through you, deep into your soul. You can’t hide from them. They see you. He saw me in my vulnerable moment of being a new mother again. I remembered that day when I was seventeen then, in the hospital, reminding me that this fragile new being was entrusted to my care.
I remembered it just the other day again when this same son, now 9 years old, sprang from his seat with an excited smile for me exclaiming, “I love this song!!!” It was a popular church hymn that missionaries frequent, “Called to Serve.” He was enjoying singing time in primary. So much so, that he sprang from his seat two other times to make sure I knew which songs he loved. The other two were, “I will be what I Believe,” and “We’ll Bring the World His Truth.” All three of those songs are about missionary work. I looked at his undaunted smile and pure excitement for the spirit of those songs and remembered being seventeen again, gazing out that window. This is what I knew. These moments right here are why I was given that knowledge.
I’m not as fearless as I once was. In fact, I am terrified and tremble in that fear. I am imperfect. I make mistakes, oh so many of them. Will what I am and do be enough for this boy to reach his potential? That is what I ponder now as I search for answers gazing outside my window. It’s not that same second story window, and I am no longer a seventeen year old kid, but it’s the question that lingers in my heart. It is what I hand to God daily, hoping in His mercy and love.
I am grateful that He enlightened an unbelieving, unfaithful, lost seventeen year old girl with what she would become. I am grateful for His tender and fearless love.
