Climbing the walls

​Daniel Thomas, CGS Musician

As we make our way through the second month of staying at home, Joshua is climbing.

EVERYTHING.

He misses the playgrounds and parks all of the awesome climbing equipment, so he’s finding stools and chairs and tables and counters.

And our sofa.

In our desire to make our sofa last through one toddler and two dogs (and to avoid injury), we have repeatedly asked that he not jump/scamper/climb over the arm of the sofa – a request that was not immediately heeded. We warned him about the possibility of falling off.

So then, he fell off. Backwards. Onto his tail bone. Oh, the pain! The crying!

And we were tempted to deploy “I told you so” or “what did you think would happen” or “that’s what you get for not listening to us.”

Humans make terrible choices each and every day. We can be warned, cautioned, informed, cajoled, pleaded with, and yet we still make choices which harm ourselves, harm the people we love, harm our communities, and harm our planet.

What does God do when we falter? Does he wag his finger, cluck his tongue, and turn His back? Does God say “I told you so”?

Isaiah 12 says “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.” And Isaiah 66 says “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”

Rebecca scooped Joshua into her arms and held him tight. We gave him comfort and love. Joshua now has a lovely bruise, which is fading.

And he hasn’t climbed the sofa since.
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The world is trying to make difficult choices right now – how do we find our way back to “normal’? What is the balance between a healthy populace and a healthy economy? And it’s very easy to look at the choices people make and judge them, to wag our online finger and cast aspersions. Will this help? Will anyone “learn their lesson” this way? Will this build bridges or burn them down? As the world frets about a potential choice between physical or financial ruin, we need to remember that what everyone could use is comfort and love.