Pursuit Through Creation & Pedicures
She painted my thumbnail purple and insisted I keep it for a week. I wore it like a badge of honor.
We sat together on a rock next to a swift-moving stream too deep to step into but close enough to splash. Her bare feet dangled over the bank as I awkwardly tried to both keep my balance and get enough water to wash and pumice her 11 year old toes. I had no idea what I was doing, and yet she was patient with my ignorance and instructed me with through giggles and tickles. She ended up with the worst pedicure on the planet, and I left with a painted thumb. It was a sweet and holy moment I will never forget.
She is my youngest child, and the one who often gets overtalked and overwritten. She has a quiet sass that requires no words but is often fully embodied on her face and stance. Her name means "wisdom," and she has an uncanny awareness of the world that sees through the thin places and into the wonder of God's mind and heart. Often sidelined by her older siblings and go-getter parents, she has learned to take her thoughts inward. And, as she's gotten older, the vault has increasingly become more guarded, making it all the harder for me to father this daughter of mine.
But there is a place where I've come to know her unfolding. Actually, it's not a specific place, but places - wherever the wonder of creation bursts forth with unrestrained glory. The river, the forest, the dangerous boulder overhang, the snow packed trail or the soaring peak...this is where this wonder-child allows me to join her. I've come to know that if I want to know her heart, I need to take her first to the earth, for the earth invites and invokes a forthcoming from her that is both refreshing and new. For her, there is no sweet father-daughter pedicure without the river.
As fathers, we must be readers - readers of our children in ways that may feel confusing, frustrating or challenging. But as we read and study and adapt our fathering to the child (rather than the child to the fathering) we discover a facet of God's glory he has written into their lives that would otherwise go unnoticed and unfanned. If I want the world to know my daughter, I must first do the hard work to know her myself - to stretch beyond me into the world of the unknown and unfamiliar in order to find the treasure buried in that field.
This Spring Break, we circumstantially have the privilege of a few days together...just us. I want more of her than I've gotten recently. And I know, that to have the privilege of access to her soul, I will need to take her to the woods. We are going to spend three days together in an off-grid rustic (no water, heat or electricity) cabin, which for many girls her age would be a nightmare. For her, it's the doorway to a Narnia we both long to explore.
I might even end up with a pedicure.
Chris Bruno
Restoration Project Co-Founder
