Like a Child

Jesus and Children, Lucas Cranach

My 3-year-old continues to grieve milestones for me.  As her baby sister grows, she repeatedly asks, “When Arthur comes back with Jesus, will he eat squash? Will he sit in the high chair?  Maybe I can teach Arthur to walk!”  After many iterations of this conversation (to be fair, babies hit a lot of milestones in that first year!), I finally buckled down to explain the eternal state to her.  “When Jesus comes back, Arthur will have a perfect body.  He won’t have to learn to do any of these things.  He’ll already know how!  He might be big like Uncle Andrew.” (Since Arthur was the spitting image of his uncle as a newborn, deep in my heart I harbor a vision of a man-child who looks like my brother running to embrace me in his long arms.)

And, bless her heart, she took me at my word.  I’ve not had to field any more questions about Arthur growing up.  However, she also has begun planning their collective eternal future (big sister prerogative…).  As of right now, they are going to go to the park and the swimming pool, they will run together, and maybe do a little painting.  Oh, and take Arthur shopping for clothes.

Right there, ladies and gentlemen, is child-like faith.  When I tell my daughter that tomorrow we will go to Papa and Grandma’s, she believes me.  And then the next day comes, and her belief in me is not disappointed.  When I told her that the swimming pool would open in June, she believed me, and sure enough, in June, the swimming pool opened.  When I told her that it will be Christmas again, she believed me.  And Christmas came.  So, when I tell her that Jesus will come back and Arthur will be with Him, she believes me.  She puts Christ’s second coming in the same category as every other thing she waits for.  Then she plans accordingly - confidently and expectantly.  It’s not some mystical, far-off, someday event.  It’s real to her, just like the swimming pool and Christmas.  

 

My heart yearns in several places as I hear her.  First, I grieve my own lack of faith.  When did I become so jaded, so grown-up, that God’s promise of eternal redemption and bliss seems less sure, less close, less real than my earthly experiences?  Should I find God less trustworthy than my daughter finds me?

I hurt for the future, when perhaps she will approach the kingdom of God less like a child, when years of waiting will make the promise seem less certain, when I will have to comfort her because she misses her brother who she barely knew.

It makes me think of a verse from a beautiful poem I read in Spanish Lit:*

Desperté de ser niño. /I awoke from being a child.
Nunca despiertes. /Don't ever wake up.
Triste llevo la boca. /My mouth is sad.
Ríete siempre. /May you laugh forever.

So I pray for both of us, that I will trust God like my girl trusts me.  That she will not awake from childhood in this sense. 

Next, I long and pray for her salvation.  Because I want to see her run and play and swim and paint with her little brother.  It’s such a small part of why I pray this prayer, but I would be lying to say it wasn’t a part at all.

And most of all, I just ache for the day when God keeps His promise, when His Son comes back to be the king forever, and when I can share eternity with my son, with whom I got to share so little of space and time.  Maybe I'll get to go swimming with him, too.

*Nanas de la cebolla, by Miguel Hernandez.  (A jailed dissident during the Spanish Civil War, writing to his infant son.)