What My 3 Year Old Son Taught Me About Being TOTALLY Open to God’s Blessings

My 3 year old son is super athletic and shockingly ambidextrous when it comes to all things throwing and kicking and doing. He throws a football, frisbee, or tennis ball with amazing accuracy and speed. And he wants to play and show you how good he’s gotten for hours on end.

What he hasn’t quite mastered yet is catching.

So we stand about 10 feet apart (which is dangerous for me with an arm like his) and I tell him to hold his arms out to catch.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a frisbee, football, or tennis ball, he spreads his arms out as absolutely far as they’ll go, ready to catch.

And like the countless sea of parents before me, I talk to him about keeping his hands closer together, more in line with the size of the ball, and then being able to snap them shut as quickly as the ball gets there.

He is getting better at catching, the more we play, although I doubt my lessons have really had that big of an impact on this, since it’s really a practice makes perfect kind of scenario.

But the more we play catch, the more I realize I’m learning.

I was thinking about this again, as, almost automatically, elbows on my waist and hands open, my arms reached out when we began to sing “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow” at church.

I thought about my son catching a ball that’s so very small with arms so very wide open.

And how I’m so reverse.

I want to hold my hands out to the size of blessing I’m prepared to receive from God, catch it neatly and perfectly, and continue on with my life. “Hello, yes, God? Today, I’ll take a tennis ball sized blessing, nothing too hard or too messy. And if you could drop it directly into my hands, that’d be great.”

Instead I need to hold my hands out like my son – open, free, and ready to catch whatever comes my way. The blessing that might get dropped today might not even look like a blessing, what with it’s lumpy shape, strange size, brown hair, noxious odor, and oozy exterior.

But as we catch it and hold onto it, really embrace it as a blessing, we can see the good thing that God intended to give us in that blessing.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow…

How many times have I sung that familiar and beautiful hymn like “ho hum” and then carried on with my day?

How many times have I seen these words and heard these truths and still ask that God would neatly gift wrap my blessings, instead of remembering that God is good and He wants good things for me, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be pretty or perfect or neat or tidy?

I want to hold my hands wide open, arms spread out, recognizing my soul as the parched dry ground that it is an saying “Yes” to the blessing of one rain drop, 10 rain drops, or a torrential down pour of rain drops.

I want to know in my mind and believe in my heart and show in my actions that I’m willing to take the brown, hairy, and oozy blessing if it means good, and when it’s from God, it means good.

I’ve gotten some blessings over the years that didn’t feel like blessings at the time. Moving in the middle of high school. Plaque psoriasis. An extended hospital stay for my husband with a newborn at home. Sometimes extreme sleep deprivation. Chronic shoulder pain. Dreams and desires with no way to carry them out. Things that didn’t fit into neat and tidy boxes. Things that at the time or even for a long time felt brown, hairy, and oozy.

Until looking back or looking sideways or choosing to see the blessing, I see how embracing the brown, hairy, oozy blessing that was dropped has changed me and has made the blessing look so incredibly like a blessing. A blessing I couldn’t have caught with my hands positioned for a perfectly sized, perfectly timed, neatly wrapped blessing, but exactly the blessing I needed.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow…

All the blessings, big and small, hard and soft, neatly packaged or not so much, heavy or light, and everything in between are something I want to catch with open and willing arms.

I want to remember that all blessings come from God; have it lift my hands in praise at church and look back at me from my living room walls when I start to see the oozy and forget about the beauty.

That’s why we made this print on The Red Oak Collective. To be a reminder to throw our arms open and thank and praise God for all of His blessings.

 

Let it sing from my heart, my mouth, and my walls.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow…

 

What are some of the ways you’re learning to be more open to blessings? Share in the comments below!