Dance, girl, just DANCE

The other day I was sitting in the sunroom, a room in which I subconsciously expect people to behave, not be messy, and merit the floral patterned couch on which they sit. William swaggered in and did something messy, or maybe outright defiant, I don't remember, I just remember that I had to sharply reprimand him, "No!".  He stopped, I relaxed, he smiled, I smiled.  Then he danced.  Not ten seconds before, I had been verbally slapping his hand, and here he was dancing, punching the air and grinning from ear to ear, his little body bobbing along with his tiny fists.

In the moment I didn't know whether to laugh or give him my "this is inappropriate" face. After all, it seemed as though he was relishing the grace and not at all learning the lesson.  Nonetheless I laughed - it was all I could do - and he grinned a squint-eyed grin and kept on dancing. 

Later that day the boys were playing happily together in their room and I took the opportunity to tackle a mountain of clean but unsorted laundry that had lain in wait for about a month.  I heard from inside their room Jonathan's small voice say,

"Here, let's hold hands William."

William's voice answered, "OK Ja-jee."

"We're going to ask Jesus to go to Dragon-land."

He started to pray, asking Jesus to send William and him to a land of dragons, and even specifically that the dragon be purple. 

I smiled, and sat very still so as to hear it all.  As I listened I remembered a similar prayer Jonathan and I had prayed a month or so ago.  We were in the car and he told me he wanted his whole body to be red (or blue or green, one of his favorite colors, I don't remember which) and asked if Jesus would do that for him.  I told him, after a brief hesitation, that yes of course Jesus could do that.  He had only ask, but I also told him that Jesus might say no.  He then asked if we could pray for me too, that I would turn purple, and I admit I was a bit reluctant to pray this prayer.  Nonetheless, after internally reminding God that I was happy with my current pigment, we prayed to be different colors.  Nothing happened.

"It didn't work," I stated

"No it didn't," Jonathan confirmed.

"Well, I guess Jesus wants us to stay the way we are."

There are moments in parenting when you don't know what you want for your child, for their craziest dreams to come true or not, and in these moments I think maybe they don't know either, so you just hold your breath and hope the end result is good.  In that moment I hoped I had taught him that prayer is always good and that Jesus is always right.  I also thought how glad I was that I did not turn purple, and how bummed he must be not to be suddenly red.

Hearing him say the Dragon-land prayer I wanted to dance.  I smiled ridiculously, alone in my room.  I dance in God's grace, just as William did, in the grace that in spite of myself they are learning the mystery of Jesus's love.  I dance in the grace that Jonathan shares his dreams with Jesus, and that he invites his brother to come along. 

Jonathan told me later that night, over dinner, that he and William would be praying before bed to go to Dragon-land.  He told me not to worry if, come morning, they were gone.  He assured me they would come back.  He believed it to the point that I imagined how much faith I myself would have to  have if, come morning, they were gone.  I realized it would take a lot.  It would take about as much faith as my son already has.