Today was a day of learning for me. Today is Tuesday, and I wasn't sick, and neither was my PW, which means we spent the day together to further my studies as a woman after God's heart. This is supposed to be the plan for every week, but the late illnesses have thrown a monkey wrench - or sledge hammer, whichever you prefer - into our plans. But this Tuesday worked out smoothly. Whoot!
Moving on, Mrs.K and I spent about an hour and a half to two hours studying the book of Ruth, chapters one and two. I loved it. I loved her style of studying, learning, teaching, observing, and perceiving. She taught me a different way of looking at things, which really helped me. I'm not entirely good at reading between the lines of the Bible, and by that I don't mean making up my own stuff to put in there. I mean that I can't visualize the details of what might have happened unless they were specifically mentioned. I don't know why, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that this is an account of what happened, but not every detail is listed.
For example, take Ruth 2:5,6: "Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab" I never would have thought how this servant may have found out about Ruth. As the study continued however, Mrs.K mentioned gossip and how fast news traveled by mouth. I never would have thought to add that to the movie going on in my head. I must admit, the movie in my head is really boring, and one that I'd never watch in real life. >.< It was just really neat to be able to see how she (Mrs.K) thinks and how she takes what's in the Bible and doesn't change it, but comes to her own conclusions from what's written. I like that. It's something that I need to work on.
On to my second lesson for the day...
Mrs.K, before the Bible study, ran into the store for a moment leaving me in the van with her two-year-old daughter, Audrey. I was doing my best to hold a conversation with Audrey, who wanted nothing to do with small talk about how she was feeling and how the weather was and instead wanted to talk about her pink pony and how amazing her book was, when all of the sudden she turned the conversation onto her mother. She was obviously fed up with me. Anyhow, she asked what her mother was doing, and I replied that she was buying lunch for Trey and Grace, Audrey's older siblings, so she could run them over to the school. Audrey looked at me with her fiery red hair poking out from under her clashing-but-adorable pink hat and with her tiny eyebrows furrowed and said, "No, she's buying ice cream." I answered her in that tone older people take with young kids trying to sound fun and light-hearted, "Noooo, she's not buying ice cream!" Do you know what she said to me? "Pft!" ... She "pft"ed me!
My eyes were the size of saucers, I'm sure. You see, Audrey's two. She's not supposed to have responses like "Pft!" and say things like "Niiiiiiice" in reaction to someone moving a huge load of cookies into the Aldi's, which she said a few weeks ago, but she does! And then I noticed that those are things I say. Those are responses I have logged into my vocabulary. I realized that, although I may not be Audrey's favorite person (that has to be either her parents or Joshua, not sure which), she watches me. She picks up on things I do. I have an impact on her. That was... well, kinda scary actually. To think that I have an influence on other people's children is quite a wake-up call. This is a HUGE responsibility. I need to really watch my Ps and Qs here. I'm not just affecting myself in this life; I'm being watched, and I'm teaching others.
I think this is something we all need to keep in mind, something that we all need to realize and react to. As my Pastor says, "we're not supposed to do this [the journey] alone", and you definitely aren't alone. You're learning and teaching, whether you realize it or not.
1 comment:
See the trouble with having this blog and my knowing about this blog is that I now expect this blog to be updated a whole lot more.
Seriously, it's stunningly cool to be able to see the things going on over there from your perspective (make Joshua do it too) and I totally know how possitively terrifying it is to be emulated. My biggest challenge is that I treat most kids like adults--I talk to them like adults and... the part that corrupts them is that I look to them to make decisions. Just last week a guy came into my office with his three-year-old granddaughter and I offered her some candy from the bowl on the counter. I didn't think twice about how her grandpa would feel about her having candy. It sounds weird but I occassionally forget that my actions may not be what the child's parent wants their child exposed to...
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