Show Them

Looking at you, memorizing your face, learning you. A moment where time stands still as your new baby looks, studies this face attached to the voice it has known for months. Wonder. A connection. Those eyes pull you in, draw you to tears, flood your heart with sweeping love.

Those eyes become the color God intended. Long eyelashes, twinkles of light, flashes of mischief. Looking at you to glean from you the things they need to grow. A nod of understanding, a shake of displeasure. Setting boundaries without ever speaking a word. They watch, they become aware, little pails filling drip by drop with life.

And then, they begin to discern their own likes and dislikes. Those eyes set themselves on an object they must attain. They throw caution to the wind to explore this new awareness of an outside world that draws them with sparkles and pretties they can't resist. Their eyes turn from you. But they still see. They see you respond in anger, they feel distance grow and attention shift, they watch you live.

Show them. Show them what it is to know that you are Forgiven. Help them see that you fail, but you learn and Change. Watch the words, the actions, the treatment that shows them what they may nor may not want to be one day. Show them the cross, every day.

Those eyes, may they see Jesus in me.