Duncan: Aren’t we all just silly?

He didn’t have to tell me he was proud of himself.

He walked into the room with a plaid “Go Diego Go!” button-up shirt wrapped around his top half and his little outie belly button displayed above a pair of too-tight camouflage sweatpants.

He was about 3 years old at the time, and he had been raiding the trash bag of donations that I was going through. It turned out to be a bag of clothes that sat in the back of my car for six months waiting to go to Goodwill.

He thought he looked super cool. I took a picture and posted it to Facebook, because it’s what I do (and I figured it would future ammo for fun teenage embarrassment — and well, that’s what’s happening right now).

Later he dug through the clothes pile again and found a pair of Christmas socks that nearly reached his knees and then topped it all off with the silicone cake pan that he loved wearing on his head.

He paraded around our house like a celebrity. He high-fived the dog. He called his Grandma to say, “I dressed myself today!”

When he finally crashed into bed for naptime, he was pretty sure the world was his oyster.

Today he is 13 years old. I showed him this picture, and although still questionably dressed in a pair of pants I am pretty sure he has worn for the entire week (this has been happening since I decided everyone has to do their own laundry), he laughed at himself.

“Wow,” he said.

“You thought you were super cool,” I told him.

I started thinking about the many days of my youth when I thought I was so cool.

When I could lift my entire head of hair off my head by tugging one strand (thanks Aquanet.)

When I thumbed through the pages of Teen Beat and drew hearts around Kirk Cameron’s face.

When I back-talked my parents and taped signs on my bedroom door that said, “Don’t come in!” But they came in anyway, because it was their house and their door.

When my best friend and I got matching outfits and created and dance to Paula Abdul’s “Straight up” that we thought would probably skyrocket us to Hollywood. Maybe it would have if YouTube existed back then, except I kept tripping over myself during the running man.

I was so silly.

Even now, I read over Facebook posts from five years ago and think about what I didn’t know then that I do know now. Like my proclamation post on New Year’s Day 2020 that I would be more adventurous.

I had no clue that I was about to become a home school mom and an expert on how to work Zoom.

I can’t imagine what I am getting wrong right now. Any lofty opinion I might have really means nothing, because I have no idea what’s around the next corner that will change everything I know.

But I do know the word of God stands, and that’s where I put my stock.

In the overall span of eternity, I am still young. Nothing but a child with limited understanding in the eyes of the Almighty.

I look into the sparkling beauty of the night sky, and none of it makes sense. I watch my babies grow into men, and I marvel at the human experience. I dip my toes into the waters of the ocean and stand in awe at the horizon, and all I know is someone was behind all of this.

I will never be able to lean on my own understanding.

What will He show me when I arrive at His feet?

Sometimes I still try to look cool with the right phone, the right clothes or whatever else I think I need at the moment. But maybe it’s all just silly.

Maybe what really matters is what I look back on so fondly today.

Moments with family, seasons with friends and those times I’ve sat at the Lord’s feet to listen.

That is what never goes out of style.