April 18, 2010

  • Cheerleader

    My mom does my taxes electronically.  This year something happened, they got sent back, and my mom wanted me to come home today to sign a couple of things, so she could send them off again.  It's been overcast here for the past couple of days, and scattered showers dotted the horizon as I drove home.  We've got alot of rain this year, and with the recent rains having cleared the air, the colors seemed more vibrant than usual.  Maybe it's just because I live in the city now, and gazing at rolling hills and green pastures is more the exception than the norm.  It was a beautiful drive home. 

    The local chapter of the Lion's Club was having a fundraiser in the high school cafeteria, so there was a little nostalgia when I drove into the parking lot.  I was greeted by a couple of old, familiar faces though most of the people there I didn't know.  On Tuesdays, I've been eating with one of my youth, and her intermediate school is probably three times as big as my high school.  I have to check in at the front office; I have a name badge printed off for me, and I'm assigned a specific area to sit.  Coming back to eat at this cafeteria was just a reminder of how different small schools are.  As I was eating there with my family, I heard a small voice to my right.  I turned a saw a little girl between 3 and 4 standing there beside her mom who was eating.  She was jumping up every once in a while, and she chanting something. 

    As I listened closer, I recognized what it was.  It was an old high school cheer, and this little girl was doing her best to play the part.  She was so cute.  People walking by heard it, too, and they encouraged her to keep cheering those boys on.  But she wasn't cheering for any boys.  Football season was over months ago, and there weren't any boys (football age or otherwise) even close.  I don't know why she was cheering, but there were plenty of people there being entertained by this little girl, and I was one of them.  She was a little blond girl, and she apparently was one of the coach's daughters.  As I watched her, I imagined her growing up and cheering on those boys from the stands with her mom, growing up and cheering on those boys between rounds of hide and seek at football games, growing up and cheering on those boys as a member of the pep squad, growing up and cheering on those boys, eventually, as a cheerleader...

    Who knows.  Maybe she'll be in the band.  Maybe she won't even like football or go to the games.  Maybe she'll be taking pictures for yearbook.  I don't know, but it made me think of having a daughter, and how much of her life would be shaped even before she was conceived, how she would be gifted with things even before she was born.  It made me think of how her environment and the examples around her would influence her and what she would become...

    ...

    Paul says in Philippians (4:8) to think on lovely things. 

    Thank you, little girl, for those lovely thoughts, and thank you, God, for that little girl.  Maybe she become everything that you would have her to be.