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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Missed Familiarity

I am in a melancholy mood tonight. A little drab. Here is what dictionary.com says about these two.

Melancholy: adjective- soberly thoughtful; pensive
Drab: noun- dull; cheerless; lacking in spirit, brightness, etc.
I was trying to figure that out too. Why? I really don't have the necessary descriptions associated with someone even to warrant the above definitions or a lot to make me sad or contemplative or a bunch of the other adjectives at dictionary.com. I think it has to do with missed familiarity. Now you are asking yourselves. What does that mean exactly? Good question.

Every night before bed we have a routine. One of the few routines that have stuck with us through that past year because of all the upheaval in our lives. We try to make bedtime for the girls somewhat routine. If not always at the same time at least the consistency of the pattern of preparing and going to bed has become routine or "familiar" if you will.

The routine goes like this usually without fail no matter where we are or whatever time we are going to bed, unless one of the noodles has fallen asleep ahead of time and it would wreck their world to be awakened, not to mention just plain cruel, we do the following.

Lili is first, we ask her if she has said goodnight to "Poppy" and if she has she climbs up on me to say her good nights to me. If she hasn't she goes to tell Poppy goodnight and tries to score some sort of treat so she will get cavities and oh, never mind. That USED to be what happened until we put a stop to that. Grandfathers have a tough time saying no sometime but I will hand it to Poppy, once we told him make sure she doesn't coax a cracker or piece of chocolate out of him, he sticks with NO. And many nights we understand that as Lili comes back into the room crying her little eyes out saying "Poppy said No!".

She climbs up onto me and we chat a little bit about the day. Sometimes I sing my our "Somebodies Sleepy" song to her. I wrote it for Aly and finished it for Lili. They both act like they don't like it, but I usually see a little curl of a smile break out. Lili especially likes to climb into my arms and say "baby". She loves for us to hold her like a little baby and rock and sing to her. It also takes up time and that is what she wants to do when it's bedtime anyway. But she does it other times in the day too so she really does like it and not just for wasting time.

I look at her and say OK let's kiss, and we give each other butterfly kisses, and then Eskimo kisses and then a lip kiss, and then I pray for her. I pray that she falls asleep quickly and that she doesn't have any bad dreams only beautiful, fun dreams. I pray that she sleeps all through the night and gets lots of rest for the next days business. And I pray that God would put his angels around us all to protect us from evil. Then we tell each other we love each other a billion gazillion times and she wanders to the bedroom where Mom goes through a routine with her in her special way.

While that is going on, IF she hasn't batted those gorgeous brown eyes at me and pulled her grip on me tighter around her finger, I will get Aly to go brush her teeth and if she is not already dressed for bed to get dressed. IF she has me in her cross hairs she may just sit by me and play on my laptop for about 30 minutes while Shelley is in with Lili. Aly loves to play on the computer. And I admit I truly enjoy the just "Aly and me" time that it provides. Of course I have to try to reduce my mentality to a 4 year old and try to enjoy putting 4 scoops of ice cream on bunny's cone or counting the number of bubbles of a certain color. But I get to watch my daughter laugh and learn and smile and just "be" beside me as I hold her. Moments that I know will all too soon disappear and I will long for them.

Usually after all of the playing on the computer and rounds of questions are asked of any particular subject, I make sure she has said goodnight to Poppy and then we go through our ritual of kissing and loving before she goes with Mom off to enjoy some special time with her before she goes to sleep.

For the past two nights I have missed the special kiss and love times and she has just gone onto bed. She of course has told her Mom that she said goodnight to me but I don't think it's because she doesn't want to kiss and love on me before she goes to bed. Who in their right mind could resist that?!!! ;-) I know it is because she has had two very, very early and busy and exhausting days these past two days. She is so tired by the nights end that she can hardly keep her eyes open and she is a complete grump bucket extraordinaire. I could hear her grumping as her Mom made her go to the potty before coming to bed. And I remembered we hadn't said our good nights but I understood how tired she was and I want her to go to sleep and get rest.

Regardless, I still missed out on the special moment of my little girl climbing up on me in my recliner and stretching out looking me in my eyes and telling me she loved me and kissing me with her eyelashes and her nose and her lips. I love just holding her and smelling her hair and knowing that I am her Daddy man and she is my little princess.

Then it hit me.That is how God must feel when I don't give him the attention he deserves. OK so I am reducing the creator of the universe to the emotions of a carnal minded man but nonetheless I still believe that He WANTS me to give Him that attention. That "from the heart" consideration that should be His always. I realize that God is sovereign and does not need anything but He still can want can't he? Isn't it apparent that He wants us to obey Him? To love him? After all His word says that it is not his desire that any should perish but that all should come to the saving knowledge of Jesus. Isn't that right? SO God can want. And I believe that he wants us to give him "special" attention that only we can give. After all isn't that why we were created? To give him praise and worship from a personal relationship? PERSONAL.?!

That is why I have felt melancholy or drab. I missed my special time with my little girl. Just imagine that if I missed this with my one little child, just think how God must feel when His children (born again believers) fail to give Him any attention at all.

Oh yeah, I know we pray to bless our food, and we pray and ask God for help when we need it and we praise Him when we hear of something good happening to our friends or family but what about the PERSONAL attention. I am surely guilty of it. I used to sing to God all the time. I would make up praise songs and even when they didn't rhyme or have that great a melody they were still from my heart. A true praise that I know He was please with.

If it's possible I would like to imagine being able to make God feel like I do when my girls are wanting to please me. You know by drawing a picture or doing something you have shown them to do. I wish I had a dollar for ever time my girls had said "Daddy, watch me!" I would be dictating this to my secretary who lived with us in our mansion.

Sometimes I want to pull my hair out, what's left of it, but I realize that those words will eventually fade too. Kind of like my initial excitement and love and desire for my Heavenly Father to watch me has faded too.

I pray that it comes back.

I believe it will and is.

I just know that my girls and my wife continue to teach me everyday how wonderful our God is. I am going to take some serious time to plan some butterfly kisses for my Abba.


How about you?


2 comments:

lillian08 said...

I can not begin to tell you how much I enjoy reading your posts...
:o)
Have a blessed day,
Jenny D.

Pete said...

David,
Great Post! I pray tonight as I go back to China in the morning that I am able to climb into Gods arms each night so I can get recharged from my Daddy. I want to be there in every way for the kids at camp..... Please cheer up my Brother! The fact that you want to spend time with God makes him smile. He knows your heart!!