The small beauties.
The little efforts.
The things we clumsily try in providing comfort to each other.
I'm 30 now and I have my own nieces and nephews to dote over. Yet when I recall being eleven I don't remember the efforts of my family in an always positive light. I was shy, insecure, and though I wanted attention I was unsure of how to handle the attention I received. Needless to say I felt awkward, which I'm sure is the story of many preteens and teenagers.
Over the holidays I watched one of my older nieces in her own bashful dance of acceptance. All of us old folks smiled through her sometimes annoying impulsiveness, she pushed against us when we hugged her for longer than she would've liked, and we tried in vain to comfort her when she felt left out or scolded. It was in these moments that I suddenly reconciled with my own family for their "crimes" against my younger self.
Suddenly all their clumsy attempts seemed beautiful.
Time has blinked and now I'm standing half way to 60 with a preteen niece who is just beginning to figure out her own complicated dance.
And suddenly I feel this incomprehensible amount of compassion and grace for her.
And suddenly I see that same compassion and grace in the faces of my family.
And suddenly I see myself in the life of a precious human.
I see the efforts of my family and the grace they showed small insecure fragile me.
I see that they tried much harder than I believed they did.
I am thankful that I have experienced enough to understand that simply because we try doesn't mean that the effort will be pretty. Trying in our weakest places will hardly look like trying. It's impossible when growing up to see those above us as anything but strong. Then when you grow up you realize how many answers you still don't have and how very insecure fragile and weak you still are.
Yet we still try.
And maybe thats all that is required of us.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
2 Corinthians 12:9
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