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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Being Servant to One Another

I think that my children will grow up imagining that all music is either church music or bluegrass. Which is fine by me. One of my favorite songs to sing the kids is "Jesus is Coming." The tune is pretty catchy, and Zosia definitely gets it stuck in her head. One day I was eavesdropping on Zosia making a "phone call" on a playphone, and overheard her saying, "Addison (her good friend up the street)! Jesus is coming! Okay? Jesus is coming!" My sister has suggested that twenty years down the road we'll be remembering this story when Zosia is a missionary somewhere across the world.

I have recently had Servant Song stuck in my head, which is one of my favorite church songs. It is so simple and beautiful. I played my flute for this song at my friends' Rachel and Sean's wedding-- and they sang the verses to one another. I can't imagine a more beautiful wedding ritual. As I was singing it to Lily this evening, I realized how poignant and perfect the words are for our mother-daughter relationship, too. I truly am her servant in so many ways-- and can imagine that at times in the future I will have to humble myself to allow her to serve me, too.

2 comments:

One and Doll said...

Hey cool we made the post!

When's a good time to call? Thanks for the diapers! Really. I sorted them by size today- we are getting more and more ready. ..

Here's a question. .. Since the servant song is question. . .does Zosia ever say no to letting you be her servant? How does that dynamic play into freedom?

Adele said...

Glad you got the diapers! Ha! When I first read your question about Zosia my reaction was, "I wish!" but then as I thought about it, I realized that yes, she does resist it. One of her most frequent words is "Self" which means "I want to do it myself." I think that a new challenge of parenthood has been trying to find the wisdom to know when "self" is not reasonable (like when she wants to drive the car herself) and when it is reasonable but just obnoxious (like when she wants to cut fruit herself). And of course it's difficult to realize that sometimes I am not wanted or needed anymore-- but that's where having a newborn who very much needs me strokes my ego.