Grocery Shopping and Right Relating

[from the archives]

“What have you been doing?” I asked my two youngest as we started out on our weekly grocery shopping trip. Various meetings, phone calls and errands had kept me unconnected with their specific activities for a couple of days.

Lizzy said she’d been writing on one of her stories and re-building the lego set she’d gotten for her last birthday. Josiah shrugged his shoulders and said, “Not much really. I can’t think of what to do.”

I knew Josiah had been working with his LEGOs. He likes to make still scenes, and lately he’s been making scenes with his LEGO dragon. I also knew that Josiah has had lots and lots of ideas for creative and productive things to do with his time, however he struggles with finishing what he starts. I have long seen this weakness in his character. I’ve been walking him through the steps of overcoming a little at a time, governing him from the outside by giving him finishing assignments for his projects. I’ll say things like, “I want you to work on your ‘Treasure Hunt’ story board today for at least an hour.”

I want to see Josiah begin to govern himself more in this area from the inside-out. As we walked from the van into Costco, I began telling the kids the Bible story of the talents from Matt 25. As we chose our lettuce in the huge walk–in refrigerator, and gently squeezed the avocados to test them, I explained how God puts abilities and bents inside us like the master gave his servants the talents. In the cooking isle looking for almonds, I told them about what God wants us to do with the abilities and creativity he’s put inside us. On the way back out to the van, I talked about how not finishing the projects we’ve been inspired by God to do is like carelessly dropping some one else’s money on the ground after they’ve asked us to care for it for them. As we drove to Fred Meyers, I made more connections with the real life activity of deciding how to spend their time with relating rightly with God and His purposes for them.

While picking out a cabbage and some green onions, I asked Josiah what he thought about what I was saying. He said as he often does, “I don’t know.”

So as we picked out some nectarines, I told him that he needed to say more than, “I don’t know,” and I gave him many options of what he could be thinking about what I had been saying. Are you thinking, “I never thought of that before.”? or “That’s a good idea, I should change what I’m doing”? or “I wish you would stop talking mom”? or “I don’t understand what you’re saying”? or “What am I doing that’s leading you to say this mom?”?  I asked him to think about it some more. I told him that it would be unloving for him to have no comment on all that I had been saying.

Lizzy piped in as we stood in line at the check-out stand, “Can I tell you what it’s made me think mommy?” Of course I wanted to hear from Lizzy too. “I’ve been thinking that I need to finish my moccasins that I started making. I haven’t wanted to work on them, but I see that I need to change my attitude, and finish the idea I had.” I encouraged her and hugged and kissed on them both. We put the groceries in the van and started home. On a whim I stopped at a fruit stand to get some cherries. We also found some really yummy looking brussels sprouts there.

As we picked through the brussels sprout heap looking for the smallest ones, Josiah said, “I think that tomorrow after chores when I’m thinking of what to do, my conscience will remind me of all that you said, and I’ll get out my unfinished projects like my story boards and my funny guy drawings and work on those.”

I thanked Josiah for responding to me and kissed his face, then we paid for our cherries and brussels sprouts, got ice-cream cones and went home.

I’ll be helping Josiah remember his thoughts by asking him in the morning what he’s going to do that day. I’m sure we’ll be talking about it even more.

“And these words which I am commanding you this day shall be [first] in your [own] minds and hearts; [then] You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Duet 6:6-7

[originally posted 8/2010]