Bigger Things
“You were meant for bigger things,” whispers the voice.
What voice? Who's there?
Belle is, for one. She sings inspiringly about how much she longs for “adventure in the great wide somewhere,” far from the provincial life of the little people, baking their bread, buying their eggs, and bidding each other good day every day. “Every morning just the same,” Belle sighs. She reads books and saves a prince. Clearly, she was meant for bigger things. Aren’t we all?
This morning, my husband is away for work. He’s having his adventure in the great wide somewhere, out in Idaho, fixing the problems of the giant dairy company he works for. Because my husband is a scientist. He names and manipulates the stuff the universe is made of; at least, the stuff that makes up milk and cheese. Splitting fats and proteins is pretty far from provincial.
Meanwhile, I’m alone in bed… until my four-year-old son gets lonely in his. I wake up to his elbow in my back. The window is still dark, so I heft him up, with his special blanket, and carry him back to his own bed. “Night-night, honey,” I whisper, and kiss his forehead before staggering back to my covers. My alarm will go off soon. Every morning just the same.
“You were meant for bigger things,” proclaims the college advertisement. Be all you can be. Change the world. Dream big and then chase your dreams. How? Enroll in our school, of course. Never mind the huge debt you’ll accrue. Never mind how relevant your education will be to the realities of adult life. Leave such mundane ideas behind. You were meant for bigger things.
Bigger than… what, exactly?
My son’s getting bigger, that’s for sure. I had to buy him new clothes not long ago, summer clothes and pajamas. Now his pajamas are damp. He soaked his Pull-Up in the night. Yes, four years old and not potty trained. I think it comes with the territory of having a speech delay. He’s asking for “Game,” but I insist on Pull-Up change and breakfast first. He’s still not big enough to make all his own choices. Certainly not big enough to change the world yet.
We sit down, I to my belated breakfast and he to his video games on the tablet. Still waking up, I munch Cheerios between clicks on my own entertainment screen. When his game is done, I plan to take him to the park.
“You were meant for bigger things,” exhorts the church brochure. God wants to work in amazing ways through you, through your life, through your summer. He wants you to minister to your neighborhood, to the marginalized, to the people you’d rather avoid. Bring them to church! To your backyard barbecue! Heck, even your family vacation! What are you doing sitting on your butt chomping Cheerios while your kid plays video games?! You need to be above average! You were meant for bigger things!
Bigger than… what, again?
At the park, I only know one other mom. This playdate arranged on Facebook was apparently for a group that I’m not in. I awkwardly avoid eye contact until my son drags me to the swings. One hundred swings later, I attempt small talk. One mom responds, and we spend some time chatting about our respective kids. I tell her of his speech delay and she assures me it’s fine.
I feel like showing off his progress, so I ask my son on the bouncing horse to perform his catechism. “Who made you, honey?”
“No,” he answers firmly. “Horse. Neigh.” This is more important, Mom.
Later, the mom leaves, stating that our favorite grocery store is closing the frozen section for a huge remodel. She's going to stock up. Yikes, really? Maybe I should do the same. We need more chicken, broccoli, maybe popsicles and noodles…
Such is my provincial life.
“You were meant for bigger things,” declares a chorus of voices. These are feminists, careerists, dreamers and fighters. They look with horror at the phenomenon of the stay-at-home mom, at the women who prefer part-time work, at those who remain obstinately content with provincial life. What in the world are you doing at the park?! Who cares about chicken and broccoli? You should be writing words of fire, protesting, leaning in, smashing the patriarchy and the glass ceiling! Change the world! Be too big to ignore!
Have you seen me lately? I am not big.
It’s another Pull-Up change. Poop this time, interrupting our viewing of Marvel’s Avengers. As I clean it up the best I can, I try to expound to my son the Doctrine of Poop. “Poop is what your body doesn’t need anymore, so it comes out your bottom. If it stays too close to you, or on you, it could make you sick. It needs to go far away. So we invented toilets to take poop far away from us, so it doesn’t make us sick.”
He just likes the noise the toilet makes when he flushes it. I give up and help him put on a clean Pull-Up and his pants. He runs to the door. “Ah-b-b-ben-jers!” Superheroes are much more important than the Doctrine of Poop.
And yet, at the end of the credits, we witness a quiet, unimportant scene. The Avengers sit around a table, munching shawarma. No more epic battles, drama, or monsters falling out of the sky. That's all over. Even superheroes have to eat. Which means… eventually… they’ll have to poop, too.
“You were meant for bigger things,” hisses the serpent. You will be like God when you eat the fruit. He wants you to be content with what you have because He wants to hoard all the best things for Himself. He’s holding you back. What are you doing in this garden when you could rule heaven and earth? Get out there and change the world. Never mind that it’s already very good. Never mind your own limited wisdom, or the humility proper to a finite being. There is nothing good about being little. There must be more than this provincial life.
My son is still little. He climbs the stairs, whining, to take his nap. After a few books, he finally lies down and I tuck him in. I think of the next time I will do this, tonight, around nine o’clock. That’s when he’ll be willing to do his catechism.
“Who made you?”
“God.” Smiling around a mouthful of blanket or fingers.
“What else did God make?”
“Ah-thee.”
“Yes, all things. And why did God make you and all things?”
“Gwo.”
“For His own glory, that's right. How can you glorify God?”
“Wuv.”
“By loving Him. And?”
“Doo-keh.”
“Doing what He commands. Good!” Kiss. “Night-night, honey. Go to sleep.”
What could be bigger than this?
If what my son says is true, then the answer is nothing. Nothing could be bigger than loving and obeying the God who made you and all things.
Yes, church brochure, sometimes that means going out into the mission field or hosting big events to try and bring people to this God. And sometimes it means teaching a four-year-old that poop is bad for you and needs to go far away, because I'm the divinely chosen teacher of this child. For an introvert like me, it's actually “above average” to make any kind of conversation with a stranger, even a short spurt of small talk at the park. Will you recognize that?
Yes, feminists, there is injustice in the world. There is evil and hatred and oppression. But how can we hope to end it by clinging to the serpent’s lie that started it all? There is also good in the world. There is joy in taking care of the people you love. There is meaning in the small, provincial things. Will you recognize that?
Yes, college, your classes might lead to some pretty big adventures, like the one my husband is on. He had to get a degree to become a scientist. Both of us love learning, and teaching, so I would never denigrate that. And yes, Belle, maybe you are meant for bigger things. After all, you became a princess, probably a queen. But there’s been enough scorn for the “little people”, the ones who actually make your adventures possible! As I explore in this piece, someone has to bake the bread. Someone has to build and maintain the castle, or the college campus. Are they less valuable than the princesses and professors? Is my son unworthy of my time because he's too small to change the world?
“You were meant for bigger things,” whispers my arrogance, the devil inside me. “Publication… fame and fortune… stories that change the world…”
“Water!”
He’s awake and thirsty. Shut up, me. This is more important.
