The child on the beach

In February of 2018, we took a winter trip to Padre Island. It was right before we realized Chuck had a bilaterlal subdural hematoma. I wrote this then but never posted it.

During our time together on Padre Island, we read through Henri Nouwen's book, With Open Hands. It is a book on prayer. 

Alongside it we used the Anabaptist prayer book, Take Our Moments and Our Days.

This focus impacted the way I saw things throughout the trip.

In winter Padre Island is mostly populated by retired people because the school year keeps families at home. But there was one interaction between a mother and a very small child that caught my attention. This is what I wrote.

I'm watching a small child, maybe eighteen to twenty-four months old, with his mother on the beach. The child is completely dependant on his mother for everything. She is the reason he is at the beach. She has her eyes on him every moment. If a wave threatens to knock him off balance, she is there to steady him or even snatch him up to safety from the larger waves. 

Yet he demands independence.

He refuses to hold hands except for when he's actively falling.

She must convince him that it is his idea to move forward. She does so with laughter and teasing and he also laughs and runs along with her---except for brief moments when he suddenly suspects he has no choice. Then he stops abruptly and heads the other way.

She is so in tune with him that she stops too. 

Her face still smiling, she points at something, 

or makes a silly gesture, 

or says something.

He looks up and forgets his recalcitrance, 

eagerly darting ahead of her in the direction she has chosen for him to go.

I'm sure there are days when he is carried while thrashing and squirming to get away from the safety of her arms.

But right now he's being led without knowing it.

*****

Prayer isn't always like this, but there is an element of it sometimes.

God watching us try things, occasionally rescuing, delighting in our delight, laughing with us. Teasing, redirecting, nurturing parental attention.

Sometimes taking us kicking and screaming where we need to go.

Sometimes holding on to us as we go through things much harder than we can handle.

Loving us even as we struggle and rebel and shout our questions and accusations.

This is not the only image I rely on to portray how I think of God with me. But it is a comforting image. 

Right before I went to the beach, these are the words I copied from the Nouwen book. It seems significant that after reading these words, I noticed the child and the mother together on the beach.

"Deep silence leads us to realize that prayer is, above all, acceptance. When we pray we are standing with our hands open to the world. We know that God will become known to us in nature around us, in people we meet, in situations we run into. We trust that the world holds God's secret within it, and we expect that secret to be shown to us." p.43

"Whenever you pray, you profess that you are not God nor do you want to be God, that you haven't reached your goal yet, that you will never reach it in this life, that you must constantly stretch out your hands and wait for the gift of life. This attitude is difficult because it makes you vulnerable." p.44