Bug's Rainbow...

It's nights like tonight that I have to really stop and thank God for the blessing that this place is for Bug.

I sit here on my front porch watching him play outside in his front yard that is literally a playground. He is pretending to be his favorite new character, Peppa Pig, and he is jumping in the imaginary muddy puddles he sees in his mind's eye on the basketball court.
The sun is setting behind him and it is so picturesque but I can only imagine how much more magical this night seems to him.

I have thought a lot lately about him and his little mind.

The other day he took a bite of do-nut, making it into a crescent shape, and he said in his precious little voice of wonderment, "Rainbow!"

He had proclaimed the crescent moon, waxing or waning, whichever the case was, a rainbow the other day as well.

Both of these occurrences sort of took me by surprise and it took me a minute to register what he was saying and to then agree with him.

When I think of a rainbow, I think of a multi-colored pattern, with visions of The Wizard of Oz in all its technicolor wonder or Rainbow Bright riding on her magical horse going to visit Red Butler and Patty O'Green. I am more prone to proclaim any pattern of colors a rainbow, regardless of the shape it takes.

I don't think of a half circle shape as a rainbow, but in his mind, less restricted and more imaginative, it can be.

I love to be able to look at the world through his lens.

It reminds me that sometimes my jaded and life worn perspectives on things are not the only way to see the world.
Sometimes allowing another vantage point can make all the difference!

It's a good thing to remember when looking at all my girls here at BGC as well.
At first glance they are a mixed bag of problems. Each one shaped by circumstances and environments far from ideal. I have to admit that my own expectations of them can sometimes be confined to this one sided perspective.

Before we took over this cottage I had, like many of the other houseparents on campus, formed opinions of these girls based on what I had seen from the outside. I had put them into my own little boxes of who I believed them to be based on these limited observations and stereotypical allowances for who they could be.

But what I have found after getting to know them is that viewing them with new eyes means seeing them to be the wonderful creations that the Father intended for them to become.

Yes, sometimes, its hard. Sometimes my patience for the day is running low and it makes it even harder.

But as often as possible I am praying that I will see them with the eyes of the Father, that instead of my eyes conforming them into what I think I see, I would instead allow Him to use me so that He might shape them into all He wants for them to be.

Pray for us as we try to use our Father's eyes to look upon these girls and Bug, too!

Pray for our patience as He uses us to shape them.

Pray for Bug as he teaches us daily what it is to think outside the lines of adult perspectives.