Turn Your Gaze Outward and Upward
Resting in the smallness creation makes us feel
A child’s world is small. I remember holding my tiny baby on our couch when my father-in-law said, “Think about how small his world is. To him, this house is the entire world. All he knows is wake up, be fed, and sleep again.” I looked down at his limp body and relaxed brows, his blue eyes behind his closed lids still. How true it was.
As they grow older, their world slowly grows larger—they meet other people outside their homes, they see other houses and buildings, they learn about other provinces, countries, continents, and even other planets and galaxies. This growing of the world as we know it, despite our growing up with it, starts to make us feel a lot smaller.
When I gave birth to my first, my world became much smaller too, nearly the same size as his. I spent each day inside the same walls, with the same routines, the same food, and the same handful of people. When my world became small like my son’s, everything else seemed to bloat and engorge. A waffle getting stuck in the toaster was a disaster. The laundry basket full of clean clothes ready to be hung falling on the dirty pavement was a tragedy. Naptime cut short, giving me less time to myself, was cataclysmic. Not being able to take my daily shower made me want to cry.
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