Watch Me!

Growing up, I had parents, grandparents, and sisters at all of my volleyball games & basketball games, all of my school concerts, my piano recitals, my graduations, my church events.  I took for granted the community God had placed around me to encourage me.  I never knew the feeling of looking up in the audience & not finding a familiar face.

Yet as I have spent more time with children who are left alone for much of the day, or orphaned, I am humbled at how much I took it for granted that I had that support from my parents & family.

Today I was watching some boys kick a ball outside & one of the boys said to me "Watch me.  I am a keeper."  His duty was to be the goal keeper in this tiny game of soccer.  It hit me that he had no parent who would sit & watch him grow in his  skills or encourage him.

As I began to think about it, I realized that so many times, in the past week even, kids are calling to me to watch them do something, calling me to...

~ watch them climb the monkey bars
~ watch them do a somersault in the sand
~ watch them go down the slide
~ watch them do a flip on the bars
~ watch them carry a bowl on their head with no hands (imitating their family members who carry everything on their heads)
~ watch them jump off of a step

~ watch them dance & sing

...and so much more.  And as I thought about all of the times there is no one there to encourage them or watch them to see that they are safe, to give them pointers on how to improve, to catch them when they fall, I began to think of verses that I had read in the Bible so many times.

"Behold, they EYE OF THE LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, that He may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine."

 Psalm 33:18-19

"The Lord WATCHES OVER the sojourners; He upholds the widow and the fatherless."

Psalm 146:9

"Your EYES SAW my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."

Psalm 139:16 

And all of a sudden, I realized that these weren't just verses saying that God was watching for me in order to punish me or catch me doing something wrong.  They weren't just verses saying that God was watching for me to help me when I was in danger. 

They are verses talking about relationship...God our Father keeps His eye on us 24/7...knowing each of our thoughts & steps & ourselves better than we know ourselves.  He's watching over us, protecting us, encouraging us, loving us.

And I imagine Him, just as any parent does as they watch their child, thinking & saying "that one's mine" out of love & joy over their accomplishments, no matter how big or small.  So I watch the kids in this area as they grow & learn new skills, but I praise God that He watches them even closer & with more love in His eyes.