Super-extraordinary Heroes

I saw a hero in action this morning. While on my run to drop my teens at 0 period (that unearthly hour before buses run and thus the period to which many parents must drive their students), a car pulled to the curb by the high school's flagpole. From the driver's seat a high schooler emerged, and a father exited the passenger side. The first waved goodbye and headed onto campus. The latter waved, walked quietly around the car, got into the driver's seat, and drove away. No fanfare. No "hey-look-at-you-rockin'-fatherhood" cheers from the sidewalk. Just a quiet departure like many other mornings. But it touched my heart because that father and a whole unnamed multitude of parents do these and uncounted thousands of heroic acts every day.

They seek to empower their kids, to help them rise beyond what their parents have achieved.

Parents really are extra-ordinary heroes. Whether they're still in the young stages--nighttime feedings, toddler meltdowns, food battles, everyday routines; in the middle years of elementary challenges,science projects and soccer seasons; to the last few years where parenting burgeoning adults is a delicate mixture of holding on and letting go--the sheer amount of love and nurture and flat-out endurance that millions of parents around the word exhibit is nothing short of amazing.


CEOs get award banquets. Sports heroes rake in money and kudos. But here in the trenches of parenthood, acknowledgments are delayed--often only in retrospect do those same kids look at us and see actual people--people who love and dream and sacrifice on their behalf. But that's okay because we're extra-ordinary heroes. Our reward is not so much that they would look us in the eyes and say, "You're an amazing parent," (though that is definitely music to our ears), but that they become who they were meant to be, climb the mountains that are theirs, and plant their flags at the summits. That is our reward. That is our mission. That is our joy.

We Are the Ocean

I

We are the ocean, you and I.

The accumulated courage and gifts and incredible riches that lie within each of us overwhelm the sand in sheer weight and glory. Strange how we rarely understand this, how we can journey through our lives wondering--fearing--that we are not enough.

There's so many people in the world--sometimes I think about how each person, each dwelling has a whole life all its own--mothers, fathers, siblings, children, cousins--like waves going out and out and out. All across the country and the world, each life is lived in full color, Tragedies. Triumphs.
Precocious toddlers. Talented teens. Aging parents. It boggles my mind to ponder the multiplied millions of ripples going out from every person, but God knows us each one.

I love that.

He knows each individual "us" as if we were the only one He ever created. That intimately. He not only knows the names and the number of stars in the sky, or the sand on all the seashores, He knows the number of hairs on each of our heads. We are not "the masses" to him. We are known. Valued. Loved. He is not overwhelmed by the ocean of humanity that lives and breathes and calls out to Him in need and in love and in etremities often. No, not overwhelmed. Quite the contrary:

He is delighted with us!