Up the morning steps I go, toward the sound of energetic, tuneless singing, punctuated by enthusiastic commentary in the little yellow room. I round the corner, unlatch his door, and swing it open - always an excitingly unpredictable moment, followed by anything from a happy "Mommy!!!" to a suddenly, inexplicably furious squeal.
This morning, he's standing in the far corner of his crib, pointing hard at his changing table.
"There's a fox!!!" he exclaims.
A what? I open the blinds and let light in. Yesterday's jeans and shirt lie crumpled in a pile. He looks.
It doesn't take long for him to regroup with a revised exclamation: "When it was dark, it was a fox!!"
Ahhh.....! Not "oops, it was only my clothes," not "it was dark; I couldn't see," not "I was wrong," but "when it was dark, it was a fox."
He's just a toddler. He couldn't know that what I heard was myself, insisting on the truth of a lie freshly-exposed by the light, unwilling to release an old familiar hurt to embrace instead an opportunity for life.
Open my eyes, O Father of the heavenly lights, to see what's truly there, instead of pictures painted in shadows. Open my heart to receive your good gifts.
Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth
James 1:17, 18
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