Certain Qualities

I was thinking about what I want for her to be known for. Before she was born we read some books that talked about how children are judged so much from an early age by how they look. And it’s sort of true. What else can you really say about a six month-old? (wow, he really makes great poops.) Why else do we fawn so much over cute little outfits? I realized pretty quickly after starting her in daycare that dressing her in the same pajama onesies every day, while clearly the most cost-effective and diaper-efficient method, was not going to cut it. Those daycare babies had real little fake jeans, and socks with shoes. I never really got the point of shoes for babies who can’t yet walk.

D and I asked ourselves one day, if we had to pick the top three qualities we wish she would have, what would it be? Would we want her to be a girl that people would know and think, “wow, she is really good looking”? Or, “she’s incredibly smart”? Or, “she’s an amazing athlete/musician/writer”?

D said he would most of all want her to be someone kind. That of course made me immediately ashamed of my top three, which were somewhere in the vicinity of looks/smarts/the-mad-athletic-skills-I-never-had. It made me realize that the road to caring too much about how she looks or what she can achieve can be a slippery slope.

It got me thinking about the other fruit of the spirit that didn’t make it on my list. What about praying for E to be someone who is patient? Who has self-control? Who is gentle? Who, like her name, is full of joy?

So to remind myself, I posted a list of one quality to pray for, each day of the month. Today was courage. Tomorrow is salvation. We’ll see how it goes.