A lesson on perspective
It's January 19th and our kids have been out of school for what feels like the 300th day in a row. Snow and ice storms came and went (leaving a whole quarter inch in our yard). Five days later, woefully unprepared Chattanooga announces yet another snow day, without a flurry in sight. Sarah and I are fried. This feels like the longest, cruelest practical joke.
In between work calls, I sneak into the kitchen for a refill of coffee hoping nobody will notice me.
“Can I have a sandwich?” My daughter has caught me. Of course she is hungry again - even after fourteen trillion snacks.
I begin quickly assembling a sandwich, smearing peanut butter and jelly onto one of the twenty-one loaves of bread we purchased when a quarter inch of snow began falling. I slide it across the table to her. She looks at it with disapproval.
“Daddy, you know I don’t like the crust!”
This protest is about all I can take. My arms tighten and frustration rises. A million impatient responses run through my exhausted mind.
What’s wrong with you?
Why are you so selfish?
Why won’t you try something new?
The crust is the exact same as the rest of the bread!
I’m not your chef!
I don’t have time, I have to work you know!
Why can’t you just be grateful?
Why can’t you just be what I need you to be right now?
I take a deep breath. I’ve said things like this before - trying to insist on my own way. It’s never effective. It’s never loving. So what does this parenting moment actually require of me?
I think for a moment about this daughter of mine. She loves school, she loves to learn. She hasn’t seen her friends in days. Her routine is just as off as mine. With no snow in sight, her expectations of “maybe you’ll go back to school tomorrow” have been crushed day after day. The promise of enough snow to build a snowman fell woefully short. Could it be that her unseen discouragements have manifested in something as simple as a sandwich?
We are more alike than we are different, I think.
Could it be that the simple act of cutting the crust off a sandwich communicates…
You are worth my time.
You are worth my energy.
You are not a problem to be fixed.
You are safe with me, even in disappointment.
She smiled as I made those four little cuts and handed her the sandwich. Of all the things that seemed out of control for both of us, we were just what the other needed that day.