Last week the midwife who helped deliver our little Autumn Faith on Monday returned for a follow-up visit to finalize the birth certificate and check on mommy and baby. Another thing she did was paint black ink all over Autumn’s tiny feet to imprint them on a certificate, allowing us to view her precious heel-to-toe soles in a new way.
As we marveled over her perfect feet, of course we credited God for the wonder of her unique print patterns, clearly evident in the ink. But when Skylar and Micah put their bare feet next to Autumn’s prints, the resulting picture could have been entitled, “Great Growth.” The progress made between birth and ages 2 and 3 was impressive. Autumn has her work cut out for her.
Pediatricians tell us a baby usually doubles its birth weight by 5 months and triples it by a year, by far the most dramatic growth in anyone’s life, even including a year when we might eat too much. Maybe that’s why eating is a baby’s favorite pastime. Such tremendous growth is a big job.
It’s interesting that God’s growth assignment for a newborn fits a baby’s abilities. Then as the years add up, he still expects growth, but in categories other than physically. A toddler’s biggest assignment is to learn speech and increase vocabulary. A preschooler has to conquer toilet training and begin understanding the social graces, including letting others go first.
Once we reach school, the more difficult growth begins, much of it in the school of hard knocks. Important growth takes place in the emotional realm as children learn to deflect criticism and handle verbal sparring. We grow best through the tough stuff we encounter, and the growth of our feet loses importance, except at the shoe store.
Then we hit full-blown adulthood, and slowly it dawns on us we’re falling short in being able to control life and even ourselves. We experience loss, heartbreak, and failure. And we learn we need help to grow.
God is ready and waiting, patiently standing by all the while as our little feet grow into walking ones, and much later as our childish nature grows into mature character. Little feet get bigger so we can become independent; but God grows our character greater so we can one day succeed not at being independent but at dependency, which doesn’t make sense unless we realize who he wants us to depend on. And of course it’s him.
Once we become dependent on him for every step we take with our big adult feet, life becomes richly satisfying. And it isn’t as if he doesn’t still have plans for our physical soles. He wants us to walk into the lives of others in an attempt to win other souls to dependency on him. And when we’ve grown into that, God lets us know our feet have become downright beautiful, even more attractive than the precious feet of a newborn baby.
“How beautiful… are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say… ‘Your God reigns!’ ” (Isaiah 52:7)
Though growth is hard we can count it all joy, because He is with us… when we are weak He is strong. We trade our insufficiency for His sufficiency. How blessed we are to call Him Father! He makes our feet like hinds feet so we can walk in our high places. Thank you Lord, thank you Father!!
Thank you, Cheryl, for your beautiful words which struck such a deep chord in my heart; I think this is because you spoke God’s words.
You show us, on a daily basis, that God’s Word is applicable to everything we see, hear, smell, taste; all located in our head area. It applies to the rest of our bodies, too. His Blood covers it all !
The above comment was not meant to be anonymous…sorry.
The one thing ‘constant’ in our lives is ‘change and growth’….
in our youth – we don’t understand it – in our young adulthood – we fight it – and in our senior years – we embrace it and as God’s word tells us so many times…..”it is GOOD!” It takes a lifetime of ‘growth’ – to learn the most simple things – doesn’t it?
Good post, Midge.