"Look what I can do..."

There are not many toddlers living in the Coronado.

Nor in Marchetti. Nor in Grand Forest. Nor anywhere else at SLU. And this is probably a good thing! I’m not sure if having small children is very conducive to being a successful student. Actually, after playing a lot of monkey-in-the-middle and more than a few games of hide-and-go-seek over the Fall Break, I know that it is not conducive at all!

When I interact with children, I am able to see the child in myself. I am able to connect the deep longing I have to run life’s race wholeheartedly, to climb the mountainous difficulties of life the way I used to climb the tree in my backyard. And I see the child in myself in more subtle ways, too.

Like many children,

I want to be noticed.

And seen.

And known.

And loved.

This is what I most covet.

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“Look what I can do.” It is a phrase that children say all the time. I heard it this weekend, and looking back on my own childhood, I am sure that I said it a lot as well.

“Daddy, look what I can do.” Little-boy Sito whizzes Thomas the Train down the incredible train-track he has just constructed all by his lonesome.

“Daddy, look what I can do.” And little Sito leaps as high as his little legs can take him, sticks his tongue out like Michael Jordan, and dunks the basketball as hard as he possibly can.

“Daddy, look what I can do.” And toddler-Sito shows his Daddy that he can make pizzas too, and dance salsa too, and speak Spanish too. “I can do it too, Papi. Look what I can do.”

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Do we ever outgrow this sentence? Do we ever stop saying “look what I can do?”

Sometimes college feels like one long course on how to get noticed. How to be different and study abroad and put it on the résumé and stand out. We learn how to prove our own worthiness.

These things are not inherently bad. But can we earn an identity with our lists of accomplishments? Do we have to get God’s attention by saying, “look what I can do?”

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Month-old babies can do no such thing.

Meet Fabrizio, my cousin from Peru.

Fabrizio is beloved to my sister, Maria. But if you were to ask my sister why she loves him, she could give you no reasonable answer! Right now, Fabrizio can’t do much except eat and sleep and soil diapers. There is nothing that his 8 pounds and 8 ounces can do to make my sister love him. There is nothing in him that can earn Maria’s love. He’s not even old enough to say, “look what I can do.” There’s nothing he can do...Maria just loves him, with no obligations and no conditions and no merit. She just loves him. With her whole heart, she just loves him.

So it is with God and us.

And sometimes, I want to have a hand in it. I want God to look at my ministry. For Him to look at my weekly report. “God, look at all the stuff I’m doing. Don’t I deserve your love?” I want to give God a reason for His loving me. But no such reason exists. . .He just does.

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Look what I can do?

Look what He can do.

Vinegar, nails, and blood. For me and for you, in our place, on our worst day possible. When we had no résumé to show.  When we had soiled our diapers like Fabrizio. This is when love proved true. (See Romans 5:8)

And it proves true now, as well. In the people He has given us and the places to which he has brought us. So here we are. Another Monday. Another precious gift.

And thus, we are more than noticed.

We are cared for like Fabrizio.

Sito Sasieta is the Campus Ministry GROW intern.