Friday, October 13, 2017
Today as I sit down on a bench outside of my room I am immediately drawn to a small family passing by. In Africa, it is very easy to make the assumption that fathers aren’t present in their children’s lives. I personally have gone days and days without seeing men standing by their children or their wives. Today the Lord teaches me something of hope by an engagement with a small child that challenges in me a new way of thinking.
Two boys trail behind a man, the ground they walk on is blemished with deep craters and stone. They move as separate entities. I watch negligent of the remote possibility that the three figures form one household. A simple gesture draws a silence in me. By the wave of the trailing mans hand, the first boy skips toward his left side. I share the eyes of the youngest, off in his own fantasy. Together we register papa calling and dart towards our now relative principle. Almost immediately after the younger one catches up in imitation of his big brother, I realize the always becoming of a loving father. I feel conned, and foolish. By the mans simple gesture my mind capsizes, I now see a loving father walking his boys to school. How can a family portrait be known and unfamiliar simultaneously?
I grew up in a home of absolute love and sacrifice. I knew my mom would be tangibly present and my father emotionally. Our familiar trial in communication became our greatest love language and our greatest foundation. I grew up in a confidence that my parents worked to secure daily for me. I knew they would always support me in my life, that they would pursue a life of enrichment for my sisters and I, even at the cost of our face time and would love us unconditionally.
Living abroad has given me a new understanding of this sacrifice and sealed a new layer of appreciation on their behalf. I am living a life apart from my family and missing them dearly, but I am living a life congruent to that of my fathers. A great trial to be away for such long stretches from his wife and daughters. I never before, could understand the strength in him to be able to withstand the great distance of care taking. In my adulthood I am unveiled to his motivation. I look at the simplistic interaction between the Lesotho family I have written about above and find a profound connection to my papa. My papa has endured a lifestyle away from his family because of a love which eradicates all fear. I will never fully know the fullness of his perseverance but I will know his heart for me more and more by the urning in my own heart for my family. Likewise, I will know a heavenly representation of the Lords heart for me and then that much more, in understanding that what I, myself feel today is a only a small portion of the fierce love of God.
