This comes during a lie in with one of the nephews who is just some months old as he nibbles on his tiny thumb on one hand and uses the other to cuddle my ear.
Wondering if he will grow up and make a statement such as, “I’ve always had a thing for ears since I was a baby”. I would be a witness to that fact as he cuddled it with such fondness and whenever his hand slipped off, he found his way back to continue this act which he found enjoyable.
Humans all have that commonality: we came into this world as little children. No matter the heights of seeming success or power anyone reaches in this life, they came into this world with vulnerability and dependence on another individual for their survival.
The most encouraging fact about our lives should be our childhood. Who were we really like when we were vulnerable and without worldly cares? Had we always been shy? Had we always been the life of the party? Had we always been drawn to a certain art or had admiration for certain careers?
This is why hardly anyone would turn down an opportunity to hear what they were like when they were children. This may aid in finding the meaning and purpose they crave in their adult life: when they know what they were really like before ‘enlightenment’, knowledge, civilisation and man pleasing became the order of the day.
The fact has always remained that the only way to move forward and make any form of progress is simply by looking back, whether on our lives, on history or on that Old Rugged Cross.
You wonder why your personality is so boisterous rather than calm, shy, ‘ladylike’ and with a soft voice then your mother tells you about the experience of your birth and how you cried so loud, she presumed you were a boy and just the uniqueness you displayed as a new born barely a few moments in the world and you’re able to seize questioning whether there’s something wrong with you and accept that this is how The Creator made you.
Childhood is a blissful state of life. The innocence, the freedom, the absence of toilsome worries, the genuine love and sincerity… this is why Jesus tells us to be like children if we must inherit the Kingdom of God, this is why some of the most comfortable relationships we have are with those who knew us as little children.
Never rush a child to grow up. Let them enjoy their childhood, let us watch them and learn lessons from them; let us preserve the memories of them at that so we are able to encourage them with facts about themselves which they might be questioning, that this is indeed how The Creator intended for them to be from birth.
Oh for grace to become like the littlest of children indeed at heart: what peace, what joy!