Taking Baby Steps

I can still remember wondering if our oldest son Chris would graduate from high school holding onto someone’s hand.

He’d hit all his first-year milestones at the expected times:  rolling over, sitting up, crawling, cruising (walking while holding onto furniture) and then WHAM! At eight months of age, Chris developed a persistent ear infection that left him cranky, clingy, and lethargic for two months. When the doctor finally declared him infection free, we hoped Chris would bounce back and continue his quest for pedestrian freedom.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, our little man became very reliant on being carried or, at the very least, having someone hold his hand. It took weeks to wean him from the actual hand to holding the end of his blanket while me or Ernie held the other and Chris tottered along beside us.

We tried tricking him into walking: Strolling along, we would drop our end of the blanket and stop. Chris would continue on for a step or two on his own before he realized he’d been duped. At that point, he would look back at his betrayer with panic in his eyes, drop to the floor and crawl back to cling to a pant leg.

At 13 months, Chris still wasn’t venturing out on his own, but he was experimenting with tricks while cruising. The day I caught him walking backwards while holding onto the coffee table, I decided I’d had enough of his assisted walking dependency.

As co-conspirators, Ernie and I took the path many parents take: we FORCED our little man to walk. There on the dining room floor, we sat about a step apart and I coxed Chris to walk at me. Easy-peasy. We skootched a step farther away from one another. Ernie held out a hand, about one foot out of Chris’ reach, and called our baby back. Chris hesitated, but took a lumbering step and grabbed his daddy’s hand. Another skootch back, and I called Chris to return. With jerky steps he made his way back.

Needless to say, before the hour was over, Chris had made his way back and forth between us numerous times, hesitant and lacking self-confidence at first, grinning broadly and fairly running at the end. We still carried him on occasions, but that day our firstborn definitely become mobile independent.

It’s funny how grownups can so often be like our timid young son.

Way back in ’97, Ernie and I both felt God calling us away from small town Kansas. Six years and 2 kids later, God had enough of our hemming and hawing and took away our primary source of income. Even then, it was 18 months before we finally packed up and said goodbye. He led us 800 miles away to where all our lives blossomed beyond what we had ever expected. But first, he had to get us to stop clinging to a life we had always depended upon and trust he had something better in store.

We took another huge baby step when I returned to college to get a master’s degree in speech therapy. The outstanding student loan debt was more then the value of our house at the time, but the choice eventually landed me in a career is rewarding in more ways than financial.

Our youngest Joe, started college last fall. It’s terrifying to think of the debt that he will potentially be facing when he graduates, but he’s already taking steps to control it through scholarships and a work-study program.

Our first born, Chris, is now 26-year-old. He lives a few miles from us, independent and happy. He and his fiancé plan to marry later this year. These are new, unsure steps he’s taking, but our prayers and hopes are with him.

God promises us in the 23rd Psalms to be with us during our journeys: “He leads me beside still waters, He makes me lay down in green pastures, he restores my soul…even if I walk though the shadow of the valley of death, I won’t be afraid because You are with me.”

That’s great assurance through all the baby steps and giant leaps we take in our lives. He’s going to be with us as long as we keep reaching for His hand.