Monthly Archives: December 2011
To Reach the Unreachable Cup
It might have been mid-winter, but my son was still asking for his usual: juice. I told him to get me a cup and I’d get him the juice. I knew that his two-year-old self wouldn’t be able to reach the cups in the dish drainer, but wanted to see what he would do. He first peered into the couple of mugs on the kitchen table, which bore remnants of my morning chai.
“This one’s dirty,” he observed, and took it over to the sink. As he reached up and put it in the sink, he noticed something: a cup! His favorite cup. It was there in the sink—dirty.
“That cup, Mommy?” he pointed to it.
“I’ll get it for you,” I said.
“No, Mommy, I get it!” He insisted. I paused to let him realize that he wouldn’t be able to reach it, so that he would let me get it for him.
“Pick me up, Mommy?”
He wouldn’t be outdone by the fact that he couldn’t reach the cup. He still wanted to get it, and to do it himself. The fact that it would have been easier for me to pick up a two-ounce cup rather than a 30 pound child didn’t register in his mind.
I picked him up and he picked up the cup, then, holding it tightly in his hand, sweetly asking once more, “Juice, Mommy?”
I wondered—as I poured the juice into the empty cup held by my expectant toddler—how many times we carry on similarly in life. “All by myself,” is the motto as we push full steam ahead with our plans and goals.
We see the little rocks in our path and feel that we are larger than life when we heave them out of the way, not realizing that Someone has lifted us and is helping us on every step of that path. And when we finally look around and notice Who has been carrying us all along, it’s hard to relinquish that “cup.” We hold it tightly—feeling we have to pull our share of the load.
Like the old farmer walking down a country road, carrying a heavy sack of rice. When a man driving by saw him struggling, he offered the old man a ride. The old fellow gratefully accepted and sat down in the vehicle, the sack of rice in his lap.
After a few moments, the driver said, “You know, you can put down your sack now.”
“Oh, that’s alright. You’ve been awfully kind to give me a ride. I’ll do my part by carrying this.”
All the while, Someone is waiting to lighten our load and lift our burdens, enabling us to reach our goals, live our dreams, and fulfill our destiny.
Perhaps we could stand to say, “Pick me up, please” a little more often.
Positive Parenting Blog 