transparency

It's a good thing toddlers and infants don't play poker.

Um, for lots of reasons - but I'm thinking mostly about the fact that there is NO poker face whatsoever. I can virtually read the thoughts of my girls on their faces - their eyes, their lips, the crinkles in their little foreheads... adorable little open books.

Frustration, delight, fear, surprise, joy, sadness, laughter and love transport themselves directly from my daughters' hearts to their faces. Their emotions are real, they are raw, and they are available.

And as a result, those girls of mine, they are known. They are loved - they have been since I saw two blue lines, and they will be until I take my last breath and beyond - but they may will not always make themselves known to me.

How often are we truly simultaneously known and loved? How often are we gifted with the opportunity to really know and love someone else? We learn at an altogether too-young age to mask our emotions and present a version of ourselves to the world. We take advantage of chances to change that identity, that persona, as we grow - we "try on" different costumes of self.

And so, as we wade through days littered equally with temper tantrums, crocodile tears, belly laughs and sticky kisses, days where a little poker face would go a long way... I remind myself that they will soon learn to choose what I know. They will guard secrets and cover their true feelings.

So today, I praise God for their innocent transparency. It is a gift I will not toss aside.

the girls

reality

Gloomy gray clouds, heavy with rain.
Blades of grass, once brittle and brown, now an emerald carpet.
Colorful blocks scattered on the floor, a tall tower knocked down by a powerful princess.
Swirly steam rising from my hand-painted mug.
Numbers, bright red and blurry, on the face of my alarm clock.
Rosy cheeks, tousled baby-fine hair and soft, warm arms around my neck.

My reality is often based upon what I can see. I define, label, describe and analyze with my eyes. The world becomes pictures - even things I cannot see, have never seen - my mind draws up images and files them away.

I want to see it to believe it.

And though a picture may well be worth a thousand words - they are often misleading, easily manipulated and at times downright false. It bothers me a bit that this is true, until I realize that I play this game as well as anyone. I paint pictures for people - in my tidied up, vacuumed home (that is normally littered with toys and carpet fuzzies) - with a touch of make-up, a little mousse and a splash of perfume (those who see Katie sans-mascara are true friends indeed) - and in what I choose to be part of my persona on Facebook or my blog (there is no "backspace" button in real life).

So I catch myself wondering what is real. What is true? Do I define myself? Do others define me? Is it what I do, what I say, how I act? All of the above? Or none?

I'm not sure if anyone aside from God, even me, knows my true heart. He alone knows all the fears, motivations, dreams, desires, regrets, words left unsaid and actions left undone. When I imagined what He would see when He looks at me, I felt a little nauseous. There's a reason I don't let other people know everything about me...

Until I realized that while He sees all those things - He also sees me through a curtain of sinless, perfect blood. Clean and unblemished, He sees Jesus. That stopped me in my tracks. No matter what my eyes tell me, no matter what pictures I paint for others, no matter what my reality is or seems to be... I am whole and saved and clean.

The rest of it matters - I don't believe God created this world and this life for us and made it completely meaningless - but it only matters because of who He is, and who that makes me.