House on the Rock

It’s not often that my very mathematically-minded, hyper-analytical husband starts a sentence with, “If I had a blog…” It was a Saturday night, our son sound asleep, and we cuddled up by the fire table, fun drinks in hand. He had just spent the entire day with Luke while I attended a college girls reunion, repping Taylor University’s Campbell #107 on the banks of Sweetwater Lake. Reunited at last, Joe and I sat side by side, eyes set on the dancing flames, reminiscing on our rare fourteen hours apart.

Together, the boys went to a baseball game, ate picnic lunches, splashed in our water table, and spent innumerable moments cycling through pitch, swing, chase the ball, repeat.

At that nervewracking hour where all the activities of the day have lost their luster, bedtime is out of reach, and Luke’s mom is still blissfully basking on a boat somewhere South, Joe opted for the scenic route: a hike through MacGregor Park, a picturesque nature preserve full of trails, trees, bogs and butterflies. The terrain makes few allowances for a stroller, which left my husband with two options. 1. Carry the kid, or 2. Make the one-year-old walk. The first option surely leaves a squirmy kid crying. The second option causes the dad to cry instead.

Option two proved most mutually beneficial, so Joe Velcroed Luke’s little laceless Adidas and headed for the hills. I have only a few photos to recount the experience, but it seems to reveal a good amount of stopping, standing, plodding, pointing, relaxing on a bench, and then standing only to stop again.

“How far did you make it?” I inquired.

“About one lap.”

“How long were you there?”

“About one hour.”

The lap was surely mere yards in diameter. Likely a small shortcut plucked from a larger trail loop. Yet one slow, sweet, painstaking hour later, the boys reached the finish line. Now begs the question — the moment you’ve all been waiting for — what is it that our numbers-loving Econ-major math-teacher Joe House would possibly feel inspired to write a blog about?

Exactly that. The slowness. The value of looking at life through a one-year-old’s eyes. Utterly unhurried. Completely in awe of a natural world adorned with the fingerprints of a master Craftsman, the same Creator who breathed our very souls into existence.

“If I had a blog,” Joe went on, “I’d write about the way that all of creation declares God’s glory, but it’s not until you look at the world like a one-year-old that you really begin to take it in.”

The concept is not new or earth-shattering. But it’s needed, and earth-exposing. It, like Luke, allows time for more stopping. Standing and staring. Pointing, resting, starting again only to stop and stare just a few steps ahead. It’s to notice the gradient of greens on a single little leaf. To count the droplets of dew that line the grass blade. To see the bursting pinks of a petunia and think, “He didn’t have to do that.”

Every sunrise, shell, and sparrow bears the beautiful signature of a Sovereign God who couldn’t bear and wouldn’t dare leaving us in a world without wonders. The heavens declare His glory and the skies proclaim the work of His hands. We’d do well to join in their singing.

May my next walk through the woods be less about closing an exercise ring and more about boasting in the breathtaking beauty of my Good and Faithful Father, the King who made willow trees and one-year-olds who remind us how to sing.