Help
With Your Rule
Children Are Terribly Intuitive
"A number of years ago I visited a hospital for children with severe handicaps. In the middle of the hospital ward was a television which the nurses watched while attending to the children. Children are terribly intuitive. They sense what is happening around them. These children knew the nurses were more interested in the television than in them... A person knows when he or she is valued and loved. We give value to people by the way we look at them, by the way we listen to them, by the way we touch them and care for them. We give value to them by the way we are present to them."
Jean Vanier, founder of L'arche in "Jean Vanier, Images of Love, Words of Hope" , Lancelot Press, Hantsport Nove Scotia, c1991, p11-12
posted by Holly at 3:38 PM
1 Comments:
As moms, we all have our times when we are more attentive to the oven, the dishwasher or laundry , or even the computer than we are to our children. When we spend all our days with our kids, this is to be expected.
But what this selection of Jean Vanier's does say to me is to be careful that this inattentiveness does not become the 'norm' in my interactions with my kids - and that I must consciously attend to their person - and have those precious moments of heart to heart, person to person contact, every day .
It's a matter of where my heart is. Is it, like the nurses' hearts - wrapped up in something other than those I live with? Or are my distractions really just occasional and not reflective of my relationship with my kids? We just have to 'be there' for our kids - intent on loving them - which we know means 'availability, acceptance, help' and 'seeing their goodness and giving it back to them'.
So that, when my kids grow and leave the nest, they will remember the close moments. And so that, in the development of their person, there are no extra unnecessary wounds which become obstacles to their full growth and maturity in Christ.
My love and accepting attentiveness IS the PRIME means of grace to my children.
Post a Comment
<< Home