My son loves his hands. Loves them. I've never seen anyone as fascinated with his hands as he is. Put something even remotely close to the vicinity of his tiny little arms and it will soon be the property of Declan James. I'm counting down the days until it's cool enough to put him to sleep in his night shirts, fully equipped with long sleeves and mittens; it's a successful morning if he wakes up without some new scratch on his cheeks.
The trouble is, Declan also loves his bottles. And believe me, he lets me know if it's been too long since he's had a play date with his friend The Bottle. If I don't catch his hunger cues quickly enough, soon he's in a full blown frenzy. (You'd think we'd never fed this boy, the way he screams sometimes. I'm going to need two jobs to survive his adolescence.) So there I am, throwing two scoops of enfamil goodness into four ounces of water at warp speed, holding on for dear life to the last strands of my sanity while Declan screams like someone is yanking his finger nails out.
And when it's finally mixed and ready, I can't even get it into his mouth, because what's there instead? His thumb. He sucks that thing like it's going to give him manna if he works hard enough. All the while, he's glaring up at me like I've personally betrayed him-- like I'm the one keeping the bottle from him.
If you'd just move your hand, I could give you what you really want, son.
I wonder how often God thinks this about us. How often do we cling to the things we think we want-- the things we're sure will satisfy us-- only to be left in a hungry frenzy? And how often do we cast accusations at the heavens, wondering how the God who loves us could leave us in want?
Maybe we're left in want because we turn away what we need. Maybe we come up empty time and time again because we're too distracted with our thumbs to be able to take a bottle.
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