My youngest was gutted. Big fat tears rolled down his flushed 4 year old cheeks.
He had dressed himself and was wearing a blue and white top. It had been the only one long- sleeved he could find. He didn’t know that it had been recently downgraded to being a cleaning cloth, and was since it was blue, being used to clean the loos- blue for loos, pink for sinks. Thanks to a breakdown in communication in the ‘laundry department’, it had ended back up in his room.
I held him close as he sobbed. Few things sting more than being laughed at by your 2 older siblings, and it certainly didn’t help that I had been joining in initially too.
I thought of my friend’s recent suggestion that a mother comforting her child is a face of God. She had been lamenting how few female images we have of God.
Does it really matter whether we think about God as male/ female? Do we limit our understanding and connection with God by thinking of God so often as being a ‘Him’ ? A Father, a Son?
I don’t know. I think it might well. I do know it’s a powerful feeling to wipe tears away. To comfort and distract by talking of what might come for his birthday. Bring a smile back by reminding him of a joke we shared. Maybe even coax him to be able to forgive those who have hurt him.
Not unlike what I sense God try to do with me, at times.
This was one of a series of reflections on theme of ‘Re- thinking God’ featured on RTE Radio 1 Living Word slot in Dec 3rd 2020.
Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash