Jordan has all her life to become; Hence, I have tried hard not to label her as an artist. I do not presume to know who she will be or how she will impact the world. That is between her and God. However, I do support her efforts to discover and evaluate her world instead of explaining every mystery. I do allow her to draw her own—albeit sometimes flawed—conclusions, and I try my best to encourage her relationship with God by stepping aside and letting Him reveal Himself to her. This, I believe, is key: allowing God to manifest Himself in any way He desires in my child, whether it be highly visible or not.

This idea isn’t novel, but profoundly difficult to implement. So many times I have stopped myself from sheltering her faith. Instead, I stood by and held my breath waiting to see what God would do with a little girl’s faith that has not known the pain of unfulfilled expectation. There is no lesson in the world that I could prevent or give that could rival a living relationship with her Maker during the formative years. My desire to minimize unpleasant life experiences for her only reveal that I am yet clinging to my own. Oh to replace them with reckless faith unacquainted with risk! I am humbled to the core.

The more I look at life through my daughter’s eyes, the more I see. The more I listen, the more I hear in her words. It does not matter if I see more through her eyes or hear more in her words than she; What matters is that I hear and see. I would not trade that ability for any treasure the world could offer me. When I listen in this way, talking with my child is anything but childish. She expresses things in ways that bypass my filters. She catches me off guard, touches me in new ways, and tickles my soul. Watching her paint in His presence is only overshadowed by His presence manifest in her paintings. Let none leave this site without seeing both who she is, and Whose she is.

Michelle Cook