What is your favorite childhood memory?
More specifically, when was it that you really got to experience the joy of simply being a child? A child full of joy. A child who is adored and loved. Simply someone’s child.
For me, memories that I shared with my grandfather immediately come to mind. He was my caretaker for the most of my early childhood. It’s hard to come up with a memory from those early years without him in it. When I was with him, I was a child who was adored. We lived in close proximity to each other, until my mom remarried and we moved about thirty minutes (by train) away from him. During those elementary years, I would take the train by myself almost every weekend to go visit him. When I got off the train and onto the platform, I took the flight of stairs up to the exit gates, and there he was…always waiting, never once late, his face beaming at the sight of me. That was when my soul breathed again. In his love was where my childhood soul found rest. When I was with him, I was simply…a child.
I miss that. I miss him, of course, but I also miss that feeling of simply being a child. No expectations. No agenda. No pretense. He just loved me for me. And I soaked myself in that love. I was his, he was mine, and that was enough for us both.
Fast forward thirty years. I am 37 years old. I am a wife. I am a mother to four children. I am a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a sister-in-law, a friend, a neighbor, a homemaker, a school mom, a church member, a Facebooker…. Somewhere between then and now, I lost the sense of being a child – almost completely. Yet my soul is crying out, “I’M STILL A CHILD!” Yes, I’m still very much a child. A child of the Most High God. My soul still seeks to find rest in the arms of the One who loves and adores me. My soul longs to be bathed in the kind of love that expects nothing from me in return. My soul longs to be loved like a child…and to feel like a child…again.
So that’s my journey for 2017. RECEIVE like a child. This is the theme my Heavenly Daddy has been trying to instill in me.
The honesty of a child.
The receptivity of a child.
The pure dependency of a child.
The simplicity of a child.
I want to go back to that. Through childlike wonder and expectation, I want to fully receive all that God has in store for me.
I don’t have the slightest idea where this journey will take me, but that’s always been the way with me and God. I do know that wherever we’re headed, He will always take me deeper…into His love. And that’s always a good enough deal for me.
I hope you’ll join me on the ride.
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and set him before them, and said, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless you repent [that is, change your inner self—your old way of thinking, live changed lives] and become like children [trusting, humble, and forgiving], you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
—Matthew 18:1-4 (Amplified Bible)