Tears blurring my eyes as I read Max Lucado's lines about the yearning for the {now} great oak to be able to tell the young girl that there is a great woman in her, and she just needs to be the kind of person God made her to be...
I knew it was coming. The sweet acorn who feared letting go of his mom's branches... The way the straining of the small oak to produce oranges and flowers was depressingly futile... The introduction of the little girl character... I saw its approach... But I had already gone too far. I even had a decent oak tree voice going on...
I held it together when the image of the small oak judging himself as less because of his inability to grow fruit struck really close to my inner monologue of comparing myself to the homeschool or working or all-natural or volunteering mothers surrounding me. A mental note was made to let the picture of the oak tree straining to grow flowers in order to be beautiful lacking impact on a single fiber of his being sink in to the way I talk to the mirror... But tears did not fall. I faked it through the description of how quickly the girl grew and changed...
But the longing to speak broke through.
The {now} big oak tree had learned the complex truth from the simple saying his mother oak consistently repeated "You have a mighty oak inside you. Just be the tree God made you to be." He wanted to speak this truth over the scared young women getting ready to set off on her own for the first time... But trees can't speak to girls... At least not in this fictional story...
That longing was just too much as I sat with two of my {now} small oaks on either side of me. It wasn't the wording or the illustration (masterful, though they were); it was the fact that I fear being unable to speak that simple deep truth that I can clearly see in these Paynes growing under me...
Even as I struggle to consistently grasp it for my own self.
I'm overwhelmed with the desire for what ground I've found in freedom to be grasped by these {now} young lives so they can wander even farther into the depths of Jesus. I see so vividly the great oaks their little acorn bodies contain. I hear in a still, strong voice repeating that it is God, and not me, who is their Farmer... And I can speak.
And cry.
Because the way they rubbed my back when my voice cracked was so tender. And my big boy had tears so instantly when he saw one trickle out of my eye he must've had them on the ready. I heard my own awkward chuckle come from the daughter who didn't know how to respond to two thirds of us crying over the bedtime story...
So we all snuggled and cried and laughed... Because this journey is hard and fast but full of randomly awe-inspiring moments...
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