My technical job description right now
is ‘nanny’. Although more often I am
referred to as babysitter, or sometimes on special days,
“Kallie-Kallie-poo-poo”. I spend a good
amount of my time taking care of three active, energetic elementary school
siblings. (And when I say active, I mean
hyper-active, and by energetic, I mean crazy.)
They consume a lot of my time, and so I
think about them and talk about them a lot.
My family and close friends hear stories about me breaking up fights
like a referee at a wrestling match, or reigning in wild kids like a
zookeeper. I love them, but they are teaching me so much about what I don’t want to do when/if I am a
mother someday.
I tell my Mom all the time about the way
the kids talk to each other. They say
hurtful, ugly things all the time. When
I was home for Christmas I was able to spend lots of time with my family,
including my little brother. Like most
siblings, we poke fun at each other and call each other names. My Mom kept saying, "Remember this next time you're nannying!" Probably a valid suggestion. But anyone who really knows me is aware that my
little (ehmm…sorry,
younger) brother is one of, if not my
very favorite person ever. So when I
make fun of him or call him names, he knows (I hope!) that I love him and all
that pestering comes from a place of deep fondness and appreciation.
The kids I nanny, however, are ones who
say, “I hate you”, “You’re an idiot”, “I’m gonna hurt you!” and mean it
wholeheartedly.
All this to say, one of the things I
want for my future home is to speak words of love. Constantly, always,
love.
I witnessed this sweet family at church a few weeks ago. There was a mom and her
three children, two older girls and a young boy. The oldest sister at one point grabbed her little brother
in a sweet embrace and kissed him on the forehead. Throughout the service the siblings hugged
each other, held each other, cried in their Mama’s arms. The love they have for each other was beyond
evident; the care for each other palpable and contagious.
I want a home like that. Actually, I
want a life like that. I want the words I say and the way I live to make it
evident to the people around me that I love them, deeply.
I’m reading the book Love Does by
Bob Goff (I highly recommend it). He
talks about how love is life, and life is love. In it he says, “…my
phone autocorrects the words I type…What
I’ve noticed, though, is that almost every time I type in the word love, it
gets changed to the word live. It’s kind
of a reminder to me of one of the things I learned about following Jesus. I learned that fully loving and fully living
are not only synonymous but the kind of life that Jesus invited us to be part
of.”
I think speaking love is one of the ways
that living and loving become one and the same.
Jesus says in Luke 6: “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth
speaks”. That is what breaks my heart
about how the kids I nanny talk to each other – that it is coming from a heart
filled with hurt and hate. I want my
life to be so filled and centered around the love of Christ that even when I am
tired, stressed, annoyed, etc. nothing can come out of my heart – and mouth – except
love. I know I am so far from that being a reality, but it is a good thing to work towards.
It isn’t a New Year’s resolution. As we know, those rarely last long. It
is more a life desire, a constant, slow-coming transformation of the heart that
leaves lasting impressions on the lives of all we come in contact with and glorifies the God we serve.
I wanna work on that. Oh, and I guess also limiting the amount of sarcastic jabs I make at my brother (;
Speak Love,
Kallie.
