Of Guidance

Tonight, while I sat cross-legged on the ottoman, Micaiah in my lap, iPad in her hands, she begged assistance in one of her favorite apps of late - one filled with puzzles requiring logic and brain-power.  Not your typical toddler fare, but my girl loves it (granted, you won't see her name on the high score list anytime soon, but it brings her pleasure nonetheless).  Brimming with excitement, she wanted to show me how to use my finger to highlight areas of squares.  So, indulging her, I grouped a few "stickies" (as they're known in the game) and, then, to really blow her mind, I grouped them the way you're supposed to in the game, igniting them all with check marks and causing the red and blue squares to spin.

She went nuts.

And, of course, when you do something that makes a toddler go nuts, you can't do it just once.  So, I highlighted a few more, made the marks and caused the spins.  Then, holding her tiny finger, I helped her perform the task as well.

And then I got tired of it.  So I stopped.

Being a persistent two-year-old, she continually tried to grab my tired hand and insisted I do it again.  I told her, "No."  Mommy didn't want to; she needed to do it.

And then my heart broke when I heard her genuine plea, "I don't know how do it!"  How can a mom turn away from such a sincere cry for help?  Even in something so insignificant as making the stickies spin.

As I once again wrapped my long, slightly chubby fingers around the tiny spindles of hers, guiding her fragile pointer to the right places, I wondered if this was how God feels about his children. 

Clearly, as my wonderful pastor's wife and Bible-Study extraordinaire puts it, every illustration breaks down somewhere and mine is in the fact that I truly believe God does not tire of guiding our hands.  But I know there are plenty of times when we bat Him away, insisting we can go it alone.  And, yet, in those genuine moments of broken humility, when we cry out, "I don't know how to do it!", I wonder if His heart melts as He gently, lovingly, wraps His hand around ours and directs our steps.

I'm sure it does.