This weekend we took a long Sunday afternoon drive to run an errand miles from where we live and to take in the sights along the way. Eric and I, as you may already know from previous blogs, often find that these little getaways allow us a moment to catch up and take a breath. But on this particular drive we found that someone else sitting in the backseat couldn’t help but get in on the conversation, and she was hardly taking the time to take a breath. 

“There’s Target”, she said as we passed a Target store beside the freeway. 

“Is this San Diego?”, she asked as we neared the edge of the city.

“That’s a tiger”, she proudly exclaimed as we drove behind a semi-truck displaying, what else, a picture of a tiger. 

“There’s a plane.”

“That’s a hospital.”

“That looks like a movie theater.”

On and on it went. I started to ask her questions about what else she saw and what she thought of it. It was absolutely fascinating and so exciting to hear her go on and on about the things she was seeing and to be able to see things through her eyes as she described them. 

Then as we were merging onto another freeway, Abbey proudly asked, “Am I being observant?”.

“Yes Sweetie! You’re being very observant!”, I answered with excitement. 

We were totally surprised by her self-awareness. More and more we see these kinds of statements from her as she grows, and it is so exciting. For a person diagnosed with Autism it’s not always easy to cut through the sensory input that surrounds them and to connect what they are seeing with the language used to describe it. This wasn’t a simple thing for her it was truly amazing. Her level of self-awareness was frankly a moment of breakthrough and so very worth celebrating. 

And once again her simple but profound statement had me thinking, “Am I being observant?”. Websters dictionary defines the word observant as “watchful”. Life can get pretty busy causing us to become distracted and to lose sight of all the beautiful things around us. In this modern world of clicks and scrolls through likes and follows what is real and true and worth our observation can sometimes take a back seat. It was a good reminder to stop and take a look around. To breath and take it all in. To be watchful. 

How wonderful to know that our God is always watchful. Scripture says, “He who watches over you will not slumber” (Psalms 121:13). He will never get distracted and forget about us or our needs. And He will never sleep on the job. I could never live up to this, but He can and I’m so thankful for that.

How about you? Do you ever find you need a little reminder now and then to stop and look around at the things that are right before your eyes?