Baby Steps

I know it's been written about countless times before, but if you've ever witnessed the process of a baby learning how to walk, I guess you'd understand why.  It's one of the most encouraging experiences, in my personal opinion.  Sophia is just to the age where she can't quite walk on her own, but she has an insatiable desire and ruthless courage to try.  Every day she screams until I come behind her with my two index fingers at her eye level so she can grasp on with all her might and use them as her "training wheels."  It was only a few weeks ago that she made her first few steps independent of outside support, and since then she's had spurts of bravery where she'll take 6-8 steps on her own.

Now, I must say, the most encouraging part of this whole process is not necessarily the skill she's picking up - I mean, really, walking is quite a common thing amongst homo sapiens, but the fact that she's overcoming personal obstacles in the process and learning how to do something that, for her, is really quite difficult.  Possibly even more impressive is the fact that these walking experiments do not come without fault and failure.  In fact, almost every time she tries, she falls.  I've not witnessed her falling flat on her face, but it's definitely possible (and likely) that she could, but she at least lands on her bum about fifty percent of the time she attempts to reach a new destination by foot.  However, despite her failures, she never stops trying.  This, to me, is really quite astounding.  She never sits on her puffy butt (she still wears a diaper, obviously) and says to the world (metaphorically, she can't talk yet either...) "Forget this stupid walking thing.  I keep messing up.  It hurts.  I'm going to stick with crawling."

Man, I want to learn that kind of perseverance.  Especially in the area of loving people.  Let's just be honest: relationships hurt.  It doesn't matter what kind of relationship it is; people will always let you down.  IT's pretty much the one thing you can count on with all of them.  But, just like learning how to walk, it's always worth it to keep loving and to open your heart up to new people.  Does this mean that we should be injudicious about with whom we share what?  No. (Sophia is learning this lesson about the top half of her body going faster than her feet...) But in the midst of our mistakes, we learn.  We have to be willing to fall and fail to have meaningful relationships.  Not every one will work out as we hope or plan, but that's no reason to give up.  Just think if we were to do that when we were learning how to walk...we'd have a lot of bruised (and frost-bitten, this time of year) knees roaming the world.  And jumping would be kinda hard, too...  No, we must keep going.  Keep being willing to fall.  And eventually, if not in all circumstances, the rewards of our investment in others will come (even though they may not be tangible at first, or even at all).  As I watch Sophia, I'm more and more convinced it is our calling to keep loving, keep risking, keep learning.  Today she walked halfway across the living room...