I really just have not been able to quit thinking about the whole thing all week. I WANT to quit thinking about it. It's an awful thing to dwell on, and envision. It hits really close to home, though. Literally, for one thing. The family lives really close by to us. Also though, we know the child's aunt and uncle. The little boy was somewhat close in age to Gunnar (a toddler, at least). We are in a season where we pretty much LIVE at a swimming pool lately. I just can so easily envision how something like that could happen, and.....it's awful.
Anyway, I've learned a few lessons this week, that I think are important:
1) Upon hearing about the incident, I felt depressed. Depressed about what happened to the little boy, yes, and depressed at the idea of something so horrible ever happening to Gunnar, but more than that, depressed that we live in a world where things like that CAN even happen. Why in the world does that have to be the case? WHY are such senseless, tragic things like that allowed to happen? One tiny little moment, an accident, and someone's entire life is changed forever? That shouldn't even be ALLOWED to occur. It seems so unfair. It seems like we deserve to have guarantees that things like that will NEVER happen. Why should ANYONE have to experience things like that? Seriously. The more I thought about it, the more depressed, and even angry, I got. And then I started thinking (or maybe God started telling me): Those feelings are only valid, if you're operating under the assumption that we live in a GOOD world. A world that is SUPPOSED to be good, happy, easy, and fair. If that were the case...if that was the correct expectation...then yes. We would be justified in being SERIOUSLY pissed off when tragic events occur. That's NOT the world we live in, though. There IS a world like that, that's coming..it's called Heaven. We're not there right now. Why do we try to pretend like we are?? We're here...on Earth...and this is how it is. God never promised that this world would be good. This world is ugly, and things like this do unfortunately happen. We would all do ourselves a huge favor to let go of any expectations we have that this world is going to treat us awesomely, at all times. However, the very fact that deep inside, we expect something better..KNOW that this is NOT in fact the way things SHOULD be...to me, is evidence of the fact that there IS something better, and this is NOT the way things should be. THIS LIFE IS NOT ALL THERE IS. There's another one coming, that's eternal, and in it, God is going to make right, all the things that went wrong here.
2) It made me absolutely cherish and savor every second with Gunnar this week. I'm just gonna be honest...that handsome little dude can be annoying sometimes. He can! I'm just telling you. He's two, for one thing. He's also super rambunctious, loud, and whiny at times. He asks the same question over and over and over again. He can be moody. He can flat wear me out. But every time this week that I started to get annoyed about something, I'd think to myself, "how much would the parents of that other little boy WISH that he was here "annoying" them?". My perspective would then totally change. One day, before his nap, after Gunnar had tried EVERY OTHER tactic in the book, to delay having to lay down and go to sleep, he asked in an oh-so-sweet (and clever and calculating) way, "Mommy, rock me for just a minute". As sweet as the request may sound, I know my little one well enough to know he wasn't trying to be sweet..he just knew it was his best shot at buying a few more minutes of awake time. I almost shot him down, and then remembered, "cherish the time". So I picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes, and when it was all said and done, I decided I could think of no way I would RATHER have spent five minutes, than rocking my precious boy.
3) It was a reminder to me to WATCH Gunnar carefully. Not that I need an excuse to be more paranoid, worrisome, and hyper-vigilant than I already am, but the truth of the matter is, accidents happen FAST, and it doesn't take more than a minute or two of taking your eyes off of your curious, fearless toddler, for something bad to happen. I know I have to strike a healthy balance here, because again, I can tend towards paranoid, worrisome, and hyper-vigilant, BUT other times, in certain situations, I can get a little too lazy, a little too comfortable, a little too preoccupied, and that's really all it takes for disaster to strike. Nason and I have decided to make it a point to VERBALLY acknowledge which one of us is "on", when it comes to keeping an eye out for Gunnar, specifically in large groups. Yesterday for example, we had a BBQ at our house, with a lot of friends, and a lot of kids, and the kids were running in and out, and all over the house, and in the bounce house, and in various parts of the yard, and it's easy in situations like that to assume SOMEONE is watching him, when in fact, no one is. So a simple "you got him?" to one another verifies that one of us is indeed supervising his whereabouts.
4) It makes me SO GLAD that we went ahead and did swim lessons with Gunnar this year. He learned so much, and while I will NOT be taking my eyes off of him at the pool until he's like 15, he did learn some basic skills that I think would help give him a fighting chance if he were to fall into a pool. For example, he can pretty easily jump in, turn around on his own, swim back to the wall, and pull himself out. And at this point in the blog, I'd like to HIGHLY recommend his swim teacher, Joy McCain. She is SO good, and goes far beyond just teaching kids how to get comfortable in the water, and maybe blow bubbles. She teaches them survival skills. Her email address is joymccain@gmail.com, and really, I just can't say enough good things about her.
My heart and my prayers go out to the Manning family. I don't even know them, but I have shared in the tiniest, most microscopic little bit of their sadness this week, and that small amount was a lot. I can't even imagine how they are feeling, but I am confident that even in the midst of it, God truly is making all things right.
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
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