Narrator of Life

A piece I wrote in 2010 for a ladies night I spoke at.

Motherhood consumes my entire life, and affects every aspect of my life, so I find it difficult to think or talk about anything else!  As well, I feel extremely blessed to be able to be a mother, and want nothing more than to give glory to God for that privilege.  I also have to admit that I stumbled across this topic on the website of Nicole Johnson, who is a humourous Christian auther, performer, and motivational speaker.  What I am going to talk about this evening is an adaptation of her article titled “Naming”.

So in the case that you don’t already know, I’ve been a wife to my husband Ryan for almost 7 years.  We have two children.  Our son James, who is three, and our daughter Rayya, who is almost 5 months old. 

The last three years in our home have sounded a lot like this:

“Do you see that?  That’s a truck.  It’s a big, red truck.  It makes loud noises, doesn’t it? See that tall tree?  It’s really tall.  There are birdies in it.  What sound does a birdie make?  Tweet.  Tweet. This is our house, our house is yellow, with purple doors.”

Does this sound familiar?  For the past three years of my life, I have been naming almost every single thing that I see, or use, or play with, or touch, or smell, or hear.  This wonderful process has reinforced my thinking about how important naming really is. When we give something a name we call out its worth and value with our words and tone.  A flower is beautiful.  Grandma is special. The fireplace is hot.  What a privilege to be the one to introduce the things that my children see and tell them their names.  Whether it is a chair, a book, a toaster, or a friend, the names of things are shaping their world.

This is a window (I’m thinking that it needs to be cleaned) and we can see outside from here. This is a broom.  We use it to sweep the floor.  This is a toothbrush. We don’t use it to sweep the floor.

And just when I was getting really tired of hearing myself naming everything around me to James, Rayya came along!  Now, our days are filled with doing that naming thing for Rayya, but also with conversations between James and I that go much like this:

“Mom, what is that thing?”

“This is a screwdriver.  I am going to use it to get this screw loose”.

“Why?”

“Because you want me to take this car out of this box, and they screwed it in”.

“I like that car.  Why did they screw it in?”

“I guess because they wanted to make sure no one steals it.”

“Who would steal it?”

“Sometimes bad people take things without paying for them, that’s called stealing – when we take things without asking, or without paying”.

“I am not going to steal, because I don’t like stealing”.

“I am glad to hear that James”.

“But mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Why would those bad people steal?”

And so the conversations go, back and forth, all day long.  I have to say that this is a part of motherhood that I love.  I love being a tour guide of the world for my children.

When I was in school and we were working on a play, I always loved the part of the narrator.  This is usually a very important character (with a lot of lines) because they know what is really going on in the story and can help the audience understand. Sometimes they are the only one who can see the big picture. Everyone always wanted to be the narrator, including me. What a joy for me to get to play this role in our children’s lives.  I am narrating the story of our days to them. We’re going to fly on an airplane today. Oh, you hurt your hand when you fell down. I saw what happened.  The ground scraped it a little. I’m so sorry.  I know it hurts, but I promise it will get better.  They look to me to put words to what is happening, sometimes as it’s happening, so they can understand. My voice is somehow reassuring to them and when I tell them something like a big truck just went by and created that scary noise, they seem very content with my explanation.

And just when I hear myself saying something to my kids, I hear God saying it so clearly to me. After all, isn’t God the ultimate narrator of our stories?  And don’t we look to him for understanding and meaning when we can’t find it in our circumstances?  He is not only the narrator he is the author and the ONLY one who can see the big picture and help us understand. When I am afraid, when things don’t make sense, when I’m hurting and not even sure why, I can often hear him narrating my experience… Oh, you were hurt by that person’s words weren’t you?  I saw what happened. That wasn’t a very kind thing for someone to say, but Heather, trust me, it will get better.  His voice is somehow reassuring to me and I’m very content with his explanations.

Needless to say, I’m learning a lot as a mother…about myself, about my children, and about God.