“Mom, who’s that?”
One of my twin boys came into our newly remodeled front room to stare at the photos we had just placed on the wall. He gaped in wonder at each of them identifying first his older brother and then his twin and then himself on each canvas. But at one photo he paused with a finger to his chin and said aloud “huh?” (He does this gesture a lot, I think he’s priming his “surprised” look for his future theatre career).
“What is it honey?” I asked him. “Who’s that?” he said pointing at the last photo. He couldn’t figure out which one of the Crowder boys was staring back at him through big blue googles.
My husband and I teased him a little while we waited to see if he’d figure it out on his own. Finally, however, we gave up and told him: “Honey, it’s you! You don’t recognize yourself?” He stared at the photo a little longer as if verifying this new information and then ran off to tell his brothers all about the new decorations.
I had a random thought this morning as I was getting dressed for work and preparing to wake up my boys and get them ready to be reintroduced to the world…
When I get fully back into the swing of things, will I recognize myself? Or has this time and the battles raging around us changed me?
Has it changed you?
I don’t mean are we more conscientious than before about good hand washing skills or less concerned than ever with makeup or facial hair since half our faces are covered all the time anyway. I don’t even mean are we double-checking what we say or do a little more closely.
I mean has something deep inside of us… changed. When we slowed down and took a hard look at our lives – did the time away matter?
My prayer for this Monday morning is that we are graced with a little of the surprise of a child looking at his own face as if he’d never seen it before. May we enter this week renewed and changed for the better by both time and circumstances… and maybe by the love of God shining light on parts of ourselves we never knew existed.
