Raising a pack of small children was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Having an entourage that believed I knew how to care for them, even when I didn't, anchored me. We spent afternoons at the park, and mornings on the couch reading a hill of books.

 

But bathing children was not one of my favorite tasks. I suppose it had to do with how often I ended up drenched, needing to change while also wrapping up slippery bodies before they escaped. It is possible that my reluctance led to rushing. One time my oldest expressed a wish that I be more careful.

 

"When you are little and I am big I won't get the soap in your eyes."

 

How quaint. His thinking was based on the erroneous notion that we would one day change roles. Which made me laugh. Only now it is happening. 

 

It is becoming obvious that I have no idea what my adult children do. Oh I can rattle off job titles, and majors, but it mostly ends there. One daughter writes code. Another markets surgical robots. A son is becoming a pilot, and the oldest, the one who promised to be mindful washing my hair, is an engineer. It used to be me who understood life's complexities, graciously watering down the information for their childish minds. But now it is on them to meet the demands of their own careers while I rely on two sentence descriptions. 

 

I am okay with that. 

 

As I slide into the final fifth of my time on earth, the ratio between what I comprehend and what I am mystified by is shifting. There are conundrums embedded in the circumstances that seemed well defined back when I was rinsing sudsy heads. 

 

But while I am increasingly aware that I may be uninformed, God doesn't need to pretend that He knows what He is doing. He really does.