Viewing the world through the eyes of our children takes a very focused approach.  My entire life I have been teased about being gullible which I easily translated into “open minded”.  I have been told I was overly optimistic which I easily translated into “openly optimistic”.  I have been chastised for being naive which I easily translated into “keeping a fresh perspective”.  While I have benefited from hundreds of life experiences, all which have hopefully made me a little more wise, I can honestly say that I hope I never lose the ability to be an open minded, optimistic person who works hard at keeping my perspective fresh.

Recently, I picked up Jacob, our 11 year old, from school and on the way home we had his favorite radio station playing.  He loves music and we love that he loves music.  Normally on the way to and from school, he is allowed to be the car DJ.  When a song came on from Justin Timberlake’s new album, Jacob chimed in that some of the kids at school were saying bad things about him up to and including that he was “gay”.  I asked him why they would say that and he said because his voice is so high.  I told Jacob that JT has always been a tremendous performer and is extremely talented and that the kids at school just didn’t understand that some people are just gifted with different ranges of voices when they sing.  I told him that he has been wildly successful and always seemed to me to have his life pretty well put together.  I told him that I thought he had just married his girlfriend of 4-5 years, Jessica Biel, and that she was beautiful and talented as well.  I promised that I would show him a picture of their wedding day.  None of that is to say that I know anything at all about Justin Timberlake’s personal life or have insight into his life choices. It just rubbed me wrong that people, even children, would be so quick to pass judgment on someone that they knew literally nothing about.

It was all too easy for me to wonder what in the world those kids were thinking in saying those type of things when it occurred to me that they had to have heard it somewhere.  Children are the great “repeaters” and we learn our behaviors from those we watch.  It made me sad.  I wondered if any of the children at school have that same voice with a beautifully high range when they sing and if the other kids are unkind toward them causing them to never truly pursue what might be a JT inspired career?  I can’t speak for anyone else’s children but I can certainly try and have influence over ours.  As adults, do we really wonder where our children pick up being critically-minded?  Where every thought is geared towards tearing people down, finding fault or judging them based on some stereotyped image?

That reminded me of a video that I saw during a presentation given by Chester Elton, author of The Carrot Principle, Orange Revolution, and All In among a couple others that I think have come out.  It was the Battle at Kruger and you really have to watch the video to fully appreciate the points that Chester Elton made during his discussion.  It is a riveting, true story about a herd of buffalo, a pride of lions and one really big crocodile all coming together on the shores of a waterhole located in Kruger National Park, South Africa.  The parable is whether, in life, we choose to be a lion or a crocodile whose only purpose is to prey on others, constantly dragging them down or to be a tourist on the sideline and simply watch or to be a buffalo who come together in the herd in support of one another and run to the rescue of one less traveled, less experienced young buffalo. It is 8 minutes of a life-long story that you simply can’t stop watching until the very end.

Our role as believers should be to stand up for the less fortunate, even when they don’t always look like us, sound like us or believe in the same things we do.  It’s easy to be nice when things are “calm at the watering hole”.  Do we strive to be equally nice and supportive to those around us when things aren’t looking so good on the banks of where we get a drink and our thirst is high?  Do we become less diligent with regard to seeing others as Jesus sees us….with unconditional love and an unending forgiveness for things that we haven’t even done yet?  Or do we immediately jump in to tarnish others’ perspectives, making them think and believe the worst, standing on the shoulders of others to make ourselves seem bigger and better in comparison?  We all struggle with those feelings, wanting that hint of superiority, seeking dominance, and appearing all-wise.  And I think we all know, none of those feelings are from God.

I recently shared with my husband how fortunate my sister and I were to have our Grandfather in our lives when we were growing up.  I told Steve that when I was with my Grandfather, he always made me feel like I was amazing.  So I tried with everything I was to be amazing.  He had a way of helping you see things with regard to possibilities instead of hindrances.  A knack of asking you to stretch yourself and put yourself in your “neighbor’s shoes” and giving them the benefit of the doubt.  I told Ashley just the other day when we were talking about somebody that she had encountered that was not very pleasant to interract with that she had no idea what that person was dealing with that day.  Maybe she just lost her child….or found out she had cancer…..or who’s husband was abusive.  We have no idea what is going on in other people’s lives.  We are tasked with being a place of encouragement for those we come in contact with, even when they are in over their heads, come from a different walk of life than what we are familiar with, or sometimes aren’t deserving in our opinion.

You can oftentimes tell when your quiet, kind words find their way in to the heart of your child.  You can see the knowledge soak into them and settle softly in their heart.  You can see the truth become a small gift that they store safely away.  And you know down to your depths that when it really matters, they will bring it back out to share with some one else.  Those are the moments that inspired me in the first place to start this blog.  Patient and Kind…just like the Lord and my Savior has always been to me.