High-maintenance boy. Soundtrack. Moppy-headed, kinesthetic, super-sensory, empath, perpetual motion machine. We have an understanding that I am not to leave the house without a formal goodbye ceremony involving hug, kiss, and “I love you,” and he will chase me out of the door if I violate our agreement.  Yet this same sweet boy has no problem feeding live insects to spiders.

When Ethan was a very little boy, his favorite passtime was playing dress up. He spent several months–maybe closer to a year–going everywhere from the grocery store to his big sister’s Thanksgiving program dressed as Spiderman. I once sacrificed a green linen placemat to make him a Peter Pan hat to match the green satin nightshirt he pilfered from my lingerie drawer. And another time I cut a brown maternity skirt in half (I never liked that skirt anyway. And at the time, I thought I was done with pregnancy after 2 babies) to make him a Tarzan loincloth.

The kid had the lines to every movie he’d ever seen memorized. He and his sister could recite entire passages of dialogue from Shrek. His sister had been in several stage productions (including a dazzling performance as Cindy Lou Who in the Grinch), but had given up her (my) dreams of acting in favor of pursuing her new dream of being an olympic swimmer. But Ethan—we just knew this kid was destined for the spotlight.

And he definitely did develop a fascination with movies, but from the creative side, not the up-on-stage-side. He liked coming up with the stories, and professed no desire whatsoever to actually perform. He wanted to make movies, not star in them. Frustrated by the lack of good old-fashioned scare-you-outta-your-wits movies that were appropriate for children (I know, I know—most people see a contradiction in there somewhere), he decided to make it his mission to one day write, produce, and direct Christian horror movies—the kind with monsters and aliens, not crazed psycho murderers—with no language or “nudery.”

Ethan inherited my sense of wanderlust. He loves to travel, and loves to explore. He loves hotels. I think he’d live in one if he could. The first thing he does when we check into a hotel room is start opening all the doors and drawers. We once booked a suite that was arranged in a circular configuration, and you’d have thought the kid had died and gone to Disney World. And hotel lobbies–oh, nirvana.

One day when he was about 5, he came to me, obviously worried. He had decided he really wanted to be an explorer when he grew up, but he didn’t want to abandon his dreams of filmmaking. Of course, these are weighty issues to a 5 year old. We decided the perfect solution would be for him to film documentaries of his explorations in between shooting his Christian horror movies. Problem solved, mama’s moppy-headed boy was happy again.

One day about a year later, I was sitting having my prayer time and apologizing to God for being a pretty sorry Christian. I just didn’t feel like I’d done anything of value. I felt God assuring me that my children were my spiritual investment for the time being. “And Ethan,” I felt Him say, “will bring a great many people to me one day.”  I looked up through the ceiling, because that always helps. “You mean, like a missionary?” I wasn’t sure if I was okay with that idea. Knowing my kid, he’d pick somewhere dangerous. A few years before, I’d read an article about how Borneo was the last bastion of cannibalism on the planet. I’d prayed for a while that God would send someone to Borneo to convince them to stop eating each other. This wasn’t setting so well so far…

No sooner had I concluded my prayer time than my now-6-year-old son walked in the room. “Mommy, you know those people who take food to the hungry people, and build houses for people who don’t have houses, and teach people about Jesus?” 

You are so kidding me, God. “You mean, missionaries?” 

 ”YEAH! A missionary. That’s what I want to be when I grow up.”

Of course. Of course he does. He still wanted to be a filmmaker and an explorer too, so he reasoned that he would do missionary work as he explored, and then film the whole thing. He walked back out of the room, and I turned my gaze back to the ceiling. “Not Borneo, okay God? Just not Borneo.”

A week later, my beautiful doe-eyed, moppy headed boy came up to me and said, “Mommy, remember that place you told me about one time where the cannibals live? I want to go be a missionary there and tell them not to eat people anymore.”

If you have room on your prayer list for one more thing, you can join me in praying fervently for the conversion of the island nation of Borneo before Ethan turns 18.

But I have no doubt that wherever he goes, he will do great things. He is an amazing boy. He is gentle as a lamb, and ferocious as a hurricane. He feels deeply, cares deeply. He is a hugger of babies, and although he has sworn he’s never getting married, I can’t help but believe that one day he will be the finest husband and the most loving father ever.