“There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” Deuteronomy 1:31
My daughter is barely three feet tall. There’s no way for her to physically carry me.
That’s a good to remember when I’m tired.
There’s no situation where she can carry me, and I have yet to be in a situation where I couldn’t carry her.
This fact has made me consider God’s love for me in a new way.
There’s no situation I could be in where it would be my duty or responsibility to carry God. Likewise — and this is true in an absolute way for God in a way it’s not for me as an earthly father — there is no situation I could be in where God is not able to carry me through it.
My daughter is in quarantine right now, and we are with her: negotiating time for work with the time and attention she needs.
Yesterday it hit me.
If we are going to not just survive but thrive as a family over these next two weeks, I cannot wait for our daughter to start making a daily schedule.
As precocious as she is, it would be a little much for her to come up with a daily calendar that accounts for the time she wants to play with us and the time my wife and I will need to do our work.
The schedule is my job. So yesterday morning, I called her in to my office, and together we planned out all the activities she was going to do that day. She was quick to bring up ones that involved her mom. I was quick to bring up ones that involved her playing on her own. We found a way to include them both.
When my daughter did have to play on her own, she was comforted by the fact that she knew how long her art or horse or nap station was for — which meant she could also see how quickly she was going to get to spend time with us again.
I read with her, her mamma danced with her, and she even had a nap as I drove her around in the afternoon.
It was a blessed day.
Just as the Lord carries me in times of need, so too am I responsible for carrying our daughter through this Pandemic period.
In fact, I can feel the Lord carrying me as I carry our daughter.
And as I meditate on that precious verse in Deuteronomy, I hold onto the promise that He will carry our family until we reach the place we need to be.