Across this tired planet that I call home, principalities and powers are stirring, fighting, flowing. World greats are thinking, speaking, pushing. Powerful events are taking place, their effects rippling to the corners of every continent. Big things are happening in the high places of the world.
And meanwhile, I am changing the diaper of a two-year-old.
Oh, children.
I’m not going to lie; I’ve had moments of supreme irritation with the shenanigans of the members of younger generations. They’ve got their quirks and immaturities, to be sure. But the thought that’s overwhelming me as I straighten out Jaelyn’s little pink dress and wrap up her soiled diaper for disposal is not that I’d rather be out in the great battle of life than taking care of her. Instead, it’s that yesterday, I was her.
And tomorrow, she will be me.
As I help Jaelyn up and lead her across the hall back into the childcare room, I realize that what I have on my hands is a bundle of promise.
A person.
I think about who I am, where I’ve come, and all that I have ahead of me; I think about my passions, my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my nightmares. I think of the awesome immensity of life bearing down on me with all its brilliant promise and anticipation as I step over the threshold into adulthood. I think about the burning desire I have to seize the world by the throat, to stand apart, to make a difference. I think about the precious opportunities I’ve had to prepare to take the one desperate shot at life I’ve been allowed.
And I realize that just a breath ago, I was Jaelyn. Totally dependent. Helpless. Vulnerable.
As she sits on my lap and begs me to play my dangerous lap games with her, I look into her laughing blue eyes, and I can see seventeen brief years into the future.
Jaelyn, a woman. Standing on the threshold of adulthood, overwhelmed with the immensity of life and all its brilliant promise and anticipation. It almost takes my breath away to come to the startling realization that that moment is only an eye blink away.
Jaelyn is my tomorrow. The world’s tomorrow.
But now, she’s in my hands. For these two and a half hours, I literally hold the future of the world in my lap.
I look around the childcare room and see the children playing. Today, blocks and puzzles and those evil little mini-Legos that are almost impossible to clean up. Tomorrow, the world.
Oh, I am insufferably proud to be a babysitter. I play patty-cake and I-spy and this-is-the-way-the-cowgirl-rides with the very destiny of this world. It’s a dangerous game.
“Miss Bowwwwwwck,” booms little Joshua. “Can hold, Miss Bowwwwwwck?”
I can’t help smiling as I pick him up and roughhouse with him. He’s tough. Laughing, he lets me turn him upside-down and wrestle with him and tousle his hair.
Tomorrow, Joshua’s going to be a man.
“Hello,” a high-pitched voice reaches my ears from underneath the plastic yellow picnic table in the room.
I look down and see my one-and-a-half-year-old cousin Titus lying on the carpet beneath the table, looking up at me and repeating over and over, “Hello, hello.”
“Hello, Titus!” I reply. “Whatcha doin’?”
Titus’s name means hero.
Foreshadowing?
Oh, I love those children. I love them, their whole generation, even when they’re pushing my buttons to the max and when I’m setting my teeth because what they’re saying—or doing—or playing—is driving me batty.
How could I not?
They are my future!
Tonight, the world is shaking. And part of its future is here in a Red Oak church building in a little childcare room.
With blocks.
And puzzles.
And evil little mini-Legos that refuse to be cleaned up.
He's too cute! You're right, though. You blink, and children are grown!
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