God's Handiwork

I'm regularly given pause by watching the people my kids are becoming, and humbled by the clear fact that I have little to do with it.

Oh, I'll have to be accountable for their lack of manners, disrespect for others, and general selfishness, for what lazy parent should get a free pass for producing such societal menaces?

No, what I'm talking about is the stuff that makes them absolutely shine.  The stuff IN them that I didn't put there.  The stuff that makes me sit back and say, "Wow.  What a gift!"

Last night I left Maddie hard at work drawing an Indian Chief for a school bulletin board.  She checked out various images on the computer for inspiration, asked to borrow large white cardstock, sharpened some pencils, and consulted shading techniques with her sister.  This morning, I was overjoyed to find this drawing on the kitchen table.

I honestly didn't know she could do this.

And it is truly beautiful.

It's an answered prayer, really.  Like so many other conscientious parents with limited time and limited funds, we can't expose our kids to the myraid of lessons and workshops and camps and various kinds of enrichment that would help our children develop their God-given talents, let alone just explore what those talents might be.

Yes, they do get some exposure, but in a small rural town and as one of nine children, how do you know you're good at the cello?  Can perform an arabesque or stand en pointe at the barre?  Have a gift for comprehending aerodynamics?  Or be able to throw clay on a wheel and create beautiful pottery?  (We can't do any of this... but who knows?  Someone still might.).    Still, I could go crazy numbering all the ways I potentially fail my kids, and not helping them develop their gifts is one of them.  Even worse, I worry about a child who would question the value of his own God-given worth, created for a purpose, and here for a reason.

So, one of my frequent prayers (usually out of desperation, or when I'm particularly overwhelmed) is that God please show these children what their gifts and talents are and to provide the people and means along the way to teach them how to use these gifts well... be it drawing, or singing, or hurdling, or loving.

Afterall, they are His handiwork, not mine.  And I just marvel at what He has made.

We are the clay, and you the potter; we are the work of your hands. (Isaiah 64:8)