The Village

It does take a village to raise a child!  In our often isolated culture where everyone is working long hours to make ends meet it is often difficult to connect with others who will have the time and desire to get to know us and our children.  I have always wanted to make connections with others, but have felt insecure building those important relationships.  In the midst of my own full life, those connections have sometimes seemed to me to be impossible.  I have prayed for significant relationships for myself and my children.  Over the years I have been delightfully surprised in the answers to those rather unbelieving prayers. People have approached me and wanted to get to know our kids.  Sometimes the children make their own connections with wonderful people who then become family friends.  Our girls have spent several days this summer with an incredible woman who initially met them in the Sunday School at our very large church. Somehow she never really connected with me until several months after beginning a relationship with the girls.  She has now become a close friend and significant support for us all.  I am delighting that my children have brought me a new friend!  In turn, I know that the girls have been a blessing to her.  She has always wanted a daughter and sees the answer to her own prayers in our girls.  They love her and delight in her care for them.  She sees beyond some of their behaviours to their kind hearts within.  Even before knowing me well, she took some time off work and asked me if she could take the girls on some day trips.  Thank you, my friend, for offering your loving and caring self to us all as a most wonderful gift.

Part of my own journey has been about balancing both the giving and receiving in life.  I have always felt that it is more important to give than to receive, and have stubbornly blasted ahead determined to give as much as I can.  In attempting to give, I never had time to see the offerings of the gifts of others. I ignored the gift of receiving and did not cultivate that important skill of receptivity and humility.  To be always the giver can, at its extreme, be a place of arrogant control.  At times I have taken on the position of  what a friend calls,"CEO of the universe."  I still want to be a giver, but also want to sit back and let God be God, being receptive and observant to the many gifts that others offer.  Those gifts come in varied and unique packages, sometimes almost like the trick wrapping that so delights my kids.   I am learning to delight in the receiving from many places, including from our children and those others who are those we are attempting to give to.  Sometimes, in fact, the giving is richer for the receiving.

Connections of all sorts in the village of our lives.  We all so need and desire those connections, but do not always notice and receive their gift.  I get concerned that my children have a meaningful and supportive village in the future, but I want to increasingly trust in the goodness and care of God and others.  Thank you to so many friends for the miracles of connection in both giving and receiving in love and gentleness.  For all of us, may we be still.  Receive and feel the warm sun on your face, like those many gifts given each day.