The Precious

"My Precious..." The whisper echoes through the air as a hand gently strokes its most precious object of desire. The caress is loving, possessive.  Another voice breaks into the stillness.  It is commanding, authoritative, yet full of compassion.  "It's been called that before..."

All of a sudden I am brought jarringly back to the present, and look down at those dumpling cheeks that I love so much to kiss with a new perspective.  The journey that I am right now on is not so different than that our beloved little hobbit friends took many years ago through Middle Earth.

**Please don't picture me now as a withered drooling bug-eyed shell of a person, hunched over my baby (for those of you that aren't LotR fans, just ignore that image)**

Take a moment.  Hear me out.  For those of you that are mothers, or parents, this is not a difficult stretch of imagination.  As I sat today, rocking my little munchkin to sleep I realized with startling clarity that no matter what I may think, the precious little bundle in my lap was not mine.  In spite of the numerous pronouns and adjectives that I may use to describe him, my son, Ezra, has only been entrusted to me for a short while.  On this journey, similar to the one embarked upon by 9 friends from a different world, I am responsible for the well-being of something small and infinitely valuable.  He is mine to protect and carry along the same path until I return him to whence he came (which is where the analogy loses steam-the implications of the end of this journey is far less ominous as I have no intention of tossing him into a fire pit now or ever!). 

However, I don't have the ultimate say on what he does, who he becomes, or what happens to him.  I am ushering a fellow soul towards his destiny, but I am not in control, nor dare I attempt to possess him.  Frodo was not to wear the ring, and could not wield its power. And while for now Ezra may need to be cared for physically as a child, he has a soul that will be eternal. 

It is both reassuring and terrifying.  Reassuring that my failings are not the end-all in his development.  Reassuring that if I do not exact complete control over his surroundings (obsess over the car seat, stuffed animals in his crib, food allergies, germs, cold weather, hot weather, peers, role models, etc etc...) he is not automatically doomed.  And yet it is terrifying.  Terrifying to leave him in the hands of an almighty God.  Terrifying to realize that I cannot exact complete control over his surroundings.  Terrifying that in spite of desperate prayers for safety, health, wise decisions, and infinite happiness, he may end up with something completely different. 

But I have faith.  I choose reassurance over terror.  I recognize that unlike Lord of the Rings, my Lord seeks set us free from the darkness rather than bind us.  And as his mother, my duty is to usher Ezra into His presence and raise him into the man he is supposed to be.  "The ring yearns to go home, to return to the hand of its Master."  So my son, already since the day he was born has been yearning to return to his Master.