September 20 - “Banana Man”

I guess I’m starting to get into this journaling thing.  Yesterday, I was sitting on the floor trying to get my thoughts together – a monumental task on my good days!  I finally got on a roll and started writing away.  I know, it was doing it the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper, but my computer is set up in Josh and Christi’s bedroom, and everybody is here in the living room.  I don’t like being by myself that much.

Which brings me to my story.  As I sat on the floor, writing passionately, Micah, one of my two year old grandsons, walked up.  I felt him more than saw him as he crouched low, inched closer and closer, and occasionally let out a stifled chuckle.  When he got close enough, he cautiously reached out toward my graph pad tablet and … touched it.  Then he ran away, giggling gleefully.  I kept writing.

Seconds later he appeared again.  Sneaking closer and making just the right amount of noise, as only a two year old on a stealth mission can.  He reached his target – the graph pad.  Slowly, slowly, he turned to just the right angle … and sat down on the pad!  Laughing now – that heartfelt laughter that’s well beyond a giggle but not quite the tears-are-flowing-sides are-aching-can-hardly-breathe, explosion-of-joy kind.  He then leapt from his position of conquest and ran from the room.  At that point his dad called out, “Micah!  No!  DadDad is writing.  Leave him alone.”  I kept writing.

It took a little longer this time, but the tiny Army Ranger returned and resumed his quest, this time careful to avoid the watchful eye of his father.  The giggles escaped a moment too soon, though, and Daddy cried out, “Micah!  No!  Wait until he’s through!”  Dejected – but NOT defeated –he began to back away.  But I stopped writing.

For the first time in this whole interchange, DadDad finally “got it.”  I put down my pencil and looked at Micah.  And smiled.  Realizing he had finally penetrated my hard head, he smiled back, giggled cautiously, and reached out a hand.  “Here, DadDad,” he said, and planted a sticker – a banana sticker – right above my heart.  And then he collapsed into my arms in a frenzy of tickling and laughter and tears.

I wore that banana sticker all day – everywhere we went.  Banana Man.  And I smiled a lot.

That’s what God did with Ike.  He crawled all over us to get us to look at him. Revelation 3:19-20 says, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.  So be earnest and repent.  Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

And we said, “No, leave me alone.”  Or “No, not right now.”  All we had to do was put down our proverbial pencils and look up.  All we still have to do is look up.  And he’s standing there with a big, childlike grin on his face and a banana sticker in his hand, waiting to plaster his love right over our heart and say, “Here, DadDad.”

Father, I want to be the Banana Man again.  And again.  And again.  Sticker me up!  Amen.