The Wise Mama Looks at the Heart
Once we begin our parenting journey it doesn’t take long for our children to embarrass us. Perhaps she grabs an older lady’s pearls and you watch in horror as they scatter on the floor. Maybe his diaper leaks all over your dress as you walk into a wedding.
As we all know, those embarrassing moments can get more and more embarrassing as time goes on. If we aren’t careful, we can get so worried about our own embarrassment that we concentrate too much on how our children appear and not enough on what is inside their little hearts.
Our embarrassing moments are just that — moments. A moment is just a snapshot in time. That snapshot may or may not capture the essence of a life.
I was discussing these ideas with a friend last night and she pointed out that tests are like that, too. A test may only show what a child knows at a given moment and not what the child actually has inside his mind. Personally I think that’s a profound realization for any homeschooling mama. But back to those snapshots of the essence of a whole person . . .
On our way back home from Texas on Monday, our friend Terry suggested that we make a stop in Memphis, Tennessee. We lived there while Ray was in graduate school; but for the past many years, Memphis has been for us just a city we drive through on our way someplace else.
On Monday we stopped and while we were there, I snapped this moment in time.
This is not trick photography. I didn’t layer one photo over another one. This is not a mural. Everything in the photo is three-dimensional. I simply stood in one spot and took a photo of what I saw.
Try to imagine where I could possibly snap this moment in time. I see deer and corn stalks and trees and windows and lampposts and freeways. Do you see them, too?
Now let me describe what is actually here. I am standing inside the Memphis Pyramid along the banks of the Mississippi River. The Pyramid first opened as a sports and concert arena in 1991, but its popularity soon waned. It sat largely unused until it reopened in April of 2015 — you’re never going to believe this unless you have heard it already — as a giant Bass Pro® Shop. Inside are a Bass Pro® retail store, a hotel, a bowling alley, a Ducks Unlimited Waterfowling Heritage Center, a 28-story high free-standing glass elevator that takes you to the top of the Pyramid, and an indoor cypress swamp with fish, ducks, and even alligators.
When I took the photo above, I was standing inside the Pyramid to the left of this entrance.
In front of the windows in the top photo is a man-made scene picturing deer habitat, complete with trees, a small field of harvested corn, and, of course, deer preserved by a taxidermist. This man-made scene is reflected on the shiny black floor of the store. Outside the window behind the scene are real evergreen trees, lampposts, a maze of elevated freeways, and a pretty blue sky.
Bass Pro® Shops are filled with artificial environments that look real. See?
But appearances are not the goal of wise mamas.
When God sent the prophet and judge Samuel to anoint a king to replace King Saul, He sent him to a man from Bethlehem, telling Samuel:
“Fill your horn with oil and go;
I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite,
for I have selected a king for Myself among his sons.”
1 Samuel 16:1
Samuel was impressed with Jesse’s oldest son’s appearance and stature, but God told him:
But the Lord said to Samuel,
“Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature,
because I have rejected him;
for God sees not as man sees,
for man looks at the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7
The wise mama looks at the heart, too.
By far the most challenging thing in my life… Setting aside the embarrassment and looking only to the heart. Man, do I struggle with pride. Thank you, Charlene, for the encouragement to be concerned about the real things.
Thank you for your honesty, Megan. It’s been our problem since Eve.