Skip to main content

Influenced by surroundings

Yesterday at church I went to say hello to Kathleen and her newborn daughter, Shana. After a few minutes Kathleen asked me if I wanted to hold Shana --before I could say no, she handed her over to me and started walking away to find her two other sons (lol).

I've often enjoyed watching and admiring babies from a distance. Partly because holding such a precious and fragile baby in my arms seemed like a daunting task, and also because I know I'm not particularly gifted with children. But when I was holding Shana yesterday for a good ten minutes, I wondered what I should say to this ten week year-old baby.

I knew her body hadn't developed biologically to comprehend everything people said to her or around her, but I just felt like every little thing could leave a mark in her future perceptions.

If I could let my child know ONE thing, what would it be? Mommy loves you?Jesus loves you? You're sooo cute?


I think about the things from my childhood that affected my perceptions of the world later on in life. I may be biased since I speak generally on behalf of business majors, but many college grads dream of having a career that allows them to travel. The movie UP IN THE AIR features the life of a traveling professional who enjoys the perks of frequent flyer miles and hotel points as he lives out of a suitcase and is continuously going in and out of airports. There are definitely appeals to traveling under company dime--my consulting friends love having the ability to expense all their travels, food, and lodging Monday through Thursday every week. But for me, traveling on the job has never appealed because of my upbringing.

Ever since I was born, my dad has traveled frequently on the job. His absence affected my view of a father, authority figures, families, and even men as a whole. Hence, I never wanted a job for myself (or for a future spouse) that required traveling. My dad had no idea his job affected me in such impactful ways, and frankly I didn't know either until just a few years ago. In the same way, I wonder what kind of impact we're leaving in future generations, even newborns like Shana. The thought scares me from time to time, but I suppose I just need to trust that my children will see more of Christ in me rather than my sinful nature.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur
5 comments
Read more

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.
5 comments
Read more

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these
2 comments
Read more