When a lesson is caught...

He hands me the small yellow square - a message scratched out by a five-year-old on a yellow sticky note.

He says, "I wrote Mommy Loves Daddy, because you do" and I smile.

It is the same thing a woman leaned over and said during church fellowship time, that when I walked in and that love of mine put his arm around my waist while we sang hymns, that my daughter noticed and her eyes sparkled. Sometimes it is scary that they will learn more from what they see in us than what I try so hard to teach them....


And I wonder, is that true of the world in general?  Will they learn more from what they are exposed to than by what we say?


We watched videos of children in poverty this morning.  I wanted my little girl, who has been so eager to sponsor a child, to see what those people go through.  We explained how it wasn't just sending someone money, but that she would be part of our family, adopted as our child (though far away) until she is old enough to be on her own.  We talked about Colombia, where she lives and looked it up on the globe.  It really isn't that far around this big world to a seven year old spinning a blue ball on its center.  The child speaks Spanish, and my little girl wants to learn so she can tell her in her own language how she has been adopted into our family and how God wants to adopt her into His family, and how we are adopted too, into this family of believers - chosen just the same, in the midst of our need and despair.  My little one smiles as she stares at her new Colombian sister.  And somewhere around the globe, I imagine a mama smiling too, wondering who chose her child.  Her husband puts his arm around her waist, and they sing hymns of praise for the Lord's provision.  Our new Columbian daughter sees her father embrace her mother, and she whispers "Mommy loves Daddy" in Spanish, and the lesson is caught, the image of their embrace forever etched into her heart.