A baby sat, almost laying, on his mothers lap in the bench across me in church today. He was playing with three rubber rings that simply fascinated him. He couldn't have been more than 3 months old, but as I watched him, I could see the wheels in his tiny, perfect head reeling with the knowledge he was obtaining in the experiment he was practicing. Every time he had the three rings placed in front of him he would sweep them off the bench onto the floor; sometime individually and other time all three at the same time. And without fail, and with no aggravation of patience, the mother would bend down and pick them up, returning them to the playing field. This boy was learning what he was capable of doing with his two, tiny hands that could barely open all the way. He didn't know that it was something of a task for his mother every other minute to re-situate and pick them up just so he could knock them to the floor again. He did, however, rely on that so he could continue his journey of experimentation.
What a small and beautiful lesson this was for me.
We are cradled in the arms of our every loving, ever patient Father in Heaven who without hesitating continually pics up after us as we day in and day out flub up. He takes the chance we threw away and places it back in front of us so that we may have another try, deciding for ourselves what the best thing to do with the opportunity would be. Without this action, which we so often fail to recognize and give thanks for, we would never be able to learn what we are capable of and what we really should and shouldn't to. What if after two or three times of picking up those little rings the mother became flustered and decided to simply take them away? The child would not only feel he did something wrong but never know what his two little hands were cable of doing.
I'm grateful for this mother's example of patience and diligence. Such love and devotion for service in the same from our Father in Heaven.
