A Nanny Lesson
I
was a senior in high school about to graduate.
I was going to need something to fill my time soon. But I also needed a way to make some pocket
change. Namely, I needed a part-time
job. I considered many places, but none
of them appealed to me. My heart was in
serving, in volunteer work, something that could make my missionary passion
bearable until God called me elsewhere.
But volunteer work doesn’t pay.
That’s
when a young couple in our church approached my dad to request his permission
to ask me to baby-sit for them. It
seemed a God-sent solution. Not only
would I receive an opportunity to serve, but I would also be getting paid for
it and as it would only be a part-time job, it would still allow me enough time
to pursue what volunteer opportunities the Lord might send my way. A few weeks passed however, and I hadn’t
heard anything more about it. In fact, with
so many other things on my mind, I had given up on the job. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
This
last Monday morning, I slept in late. It
was an uncommon low for me; I was discouraged, weighed down, confused, and it
was just one of those mornings when you don’t wanna get up and face another
day. And that’s when that young mother
offered me the part-time position of watching her eight-month-old daughter.
It
was one of those moments when you can’t help but see God’s fingerprints. In my low point, God worked a blessing into
my life to remind me that He’s still in control. To remind me not to worry so much and to
shake off the doubts that had crept into my mind and were confusing me about
the things He brought into my life, to get back to the place of blind faith and
child-like trust that I had been walking in only twenty-four hours before. Of course, I accepted the position.
Wednesday
morning, I began my first day at my first paying job and even my first time
watching a baby by myself. As I
approached the front door, I was both confident and nervous. I knew the weight of my responsibility and to
be asked at my young age to watch a baby girl was not a compliment I took
lightly. Little Eliana was not a baby
doll, I realized; she was a little life, a human being just like you and me,
only smaller. I knew God was counting on
me. Eliana’s parents were counting on
me, my parents were counting on me,
Eliana was counting on me, I was counting on myself.
To
me, that nanny position was more than just a job. Sure, you don’t get paid for serving, but for
me, it wasn’t about the money. Yeah, the
payment helps with the pocket change problem, but the monetary reward wasn’t
the motive for me. I was serving. I was helping out Eliana’s parents by
watching her, and what’s more, it was an opportunity for me to invest into
little Eliana’s life. What better
payment could you ask for than a blessing like that?
At
Eliana’s baby dedication in our church only a few weeks ago, as her church
family, we had all agreed to help her parents raise her and train her up in the
fear of the Lord. Now I was about to
walk out that promise and bring it to life.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he
is old he will not turn from it,” and I knew that spiritual education began
right there. Yes, even at
eight-months-old, I knew that the things that I did and the words that I said
would have an influence on Eliana’s life in some way. The nurturing of her little soul had begun
even at her young age. Not only was I
responsible for caring for her physical needs and providing her with a safe
environment physically, but I was responsible for providing a sheltered
environment for her spiritually as well, and that understanding guided the time
I spent with Eliana that day.
As
I rocked her and pacified her little tears, I softly sang Christian children’s
songs, even a worship song that we sing in our church. My Puerto-Rican heritage came out and I sang
her a lively little Christian Spanish song I had learned from my mom, singing
it both in English and Spanish. I read
her Easter storybook to her. As she
slept in my arms, I recited Scripture aloud, and I prayed that God would guide
and protect her, that she would guard her innocence and purity as she grows, that
she would always stay close to Him in her life.
That God would use her to make a difference in the world for Him even as
she’s growing up. From my seat on the
couch, I turned my gaze from her tiny fingers, small toes, precious little
sleeping face and up to the stairwell bathed in the bright afternoon sunlight
streaming in. And for moment, I beheld a
glimpse of the future. I saw a little
dark-haired four-year-old running through the foyer into the family room,
waving a drawing she had colored. I saw
a bright-eyed six-year-old, prim and neatly dressed. I saw sitting on the couch opposite me, a
teenage girl with her “special friend” as her parents meet him for the first
time. I saw coming down the stairwell, a
pretty young woman strongly resembling her mother’s physical appearance. And in that moment, the truth I had known
came to life for me. I realized the
sleeping baby I held in my arms was not just a baby to God, but an
instrument. A little girl that would
grow up to be a woman used by Him.
When
I agreed to watch Eliana, I knew that God was going to use the opportunity in
my life to teach me and grow me more in my relationship with Him, so needless
to say, I somewhat expected to be taught something during my first day. I was right.
After
a busy morning of getting a little more used to my role and Eliana getting a
little more used to me, a spiritual lesson was the last thing on my mind, to be
honest. Of course, the day was filled
with prayer, but I wasn’t listening for God’s voice in the day’s activity. But nonetheless, I heard it anyways.
It
came during one of my most tender moments with Eliana. I had buckled her into her swing and was
kneeling on the floor before her, making her laugh and smile by talking to her,
playing the music on her little stuffed toys, and playing peek-a-boo with her
using her “Mr. Zebra” as I dubbed him.
The swing was rocking side-to-side, and along with the music of the
swing playing, I had turned on the motion of the hanging mobile. It was then that the little stuffed birds of
the mobile caught Eliana’s eye. Three
little birds: yellow, pink, and blue.
Eliana laughed and kicked her legs in excitement. She reached up, arching her back as she
strained to reach the stuffed birds circling overhead, but she couldn’t quite
touch them. They were just out of
reach. But she never stopped trying to
grasp them in her little hands that afternoon.
As
I watched her straining to reach the birds of the mobile, the Lord spoke to me. Unlike Eliana, He revealed to me that we
don’t always reach high enough. Nobody
told Eliana that those little birds were out of her reach. She didn’t know she couldn’t reach them, so
she kept trying and trying. She wouldn’t
give up. Too often though we allow
negative, skeptical remarks and faithless comments to hold us down and keep us
from reaching for the things that seem out of our grasp. Practicality pins our dreams to earth;
society confines us from stepping outside of the standard norm and doing what
some people only dream of.
Eliana
eventually touched the little birds with her little fingertips, but she could
only do so when I pulled the birds down a little more for her. Yes, many of us need to learn to reach for
the stars a little more, but no matter how hard we try to achieve the
impossible, we’re never going to without the Lord’s help. “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man
this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Mt 19:26) Even with my help, Eliana still had to strain
to touch the birds though. With God,
nothing we attempt- no matter how extraordinary it may be- is impossible for
us, but we still have to do our part of the process. We still have to do our share of the
work. We still have to make the effort
and sometimes it might be hard, yes.
Just as Eliana had to first build up the muscles in her back in order to
reach up as high as she could, so we might have to build up some spiritual muscles
first. But Eliana never gave up, and
neither should we.
Though this lesson was short, I hope
it speaks to one of you and is just what you needed to hear in this
moment. As I said, Eliana didn’t have
anyone telling her that the birdies were out of her reach, but unfortunately we
do. So I encourage you today to ignore
the faithless comments that people around you might make, the comments that
keep you from believing the impossible and that anything is possible with
God. I read once that “miracles come to
those who believe in them” and that saying has stuck with me. The impossible is made possible with God, but
only for those who believe in the power of what God can do. “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as
small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to
there’ and it will move. Nothing will be
impossible for you.” (Mt 17:20) So let
us not be content to set our horizon on this ground level, but let us learn to
reach for the stars and to dream beyond our reach. As my father once told me, to “dare to dream
even when the world around you cannot.” To
dare to desire to achieve what everyone says is impossible, and like Eliana, to
never give up until we touch it. “For
nothing is impossible with God.” (Lk 1:37)
“Everything
is possible for him who believes.” Mark 9:23
Photo courtesy: www.123rf.com
~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,”
but heart-chords? I was struggling to
decide what to name my blog. I wanted it
to be a name that was both creative and meaningful. As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic
guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts-
our lives- are instruments. They are
constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own
decisions. They can play a melody for
praise or for entertainment. A musician
selects his songs according to his audience.
So do we. Whether our audience is
the world or the Lord, our song will be different. This blog is designed to first, increase my
awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share
the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of
praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.
Music is a powerful tool. Use it
for His glory. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of
praise to our God. Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3
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