Tuesday, November 20, 2012

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES


Many many days I learn more from children than I have learned from any adult.  I have laughed at words from children’s mouths.  I have cringed at words from children’s mouths.  I have gotten all teary-eyed at words from children’s mouths. 

Being an only child, The Girl often had to play alone.  She was pretty good at it.  She had lots of “babies”—mainly Cabbage Patch Kids—remember those?  One day when she was maybe somewhere from 4-6 years old, I was walking down the hall and heard singing from her room.  The Girl would use her dolls as her playmates.   On this particular day she was playing church and as I realized the singing was going to continue, I managed to get to my tape player (yes, that was the days of tape players and nothing else) and tape the audio portion without her knowing.   Many times since then I’ve listened to the tape and smiled, but honestly lately as I’ve thought about it on occasion, she wasn’t totally wrong with her wording.  She was singing, “Blessed Insurance, Jesus is mine.  Oh what a full taste of glory divine.”  Okay so many of you know it’s “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine.  O what a foretaste of glory divine.”  If you think about it , though, having salvation is “insurance” and it’s “blessed” and His glory when you have a full taste is certainly glory divine.  So all these years later, I still can tell that story and be blessed just as I was on that day. 

So this past Sunday The Girl's helper was absent so I went into the 4 and 5 year old Sunday School class that The Girl teaches to "help" .   After the lesson of the 10 lepers who were healed and only one came back to say “thanks”, there was a prayer time.  I still say God has to smile when he hears his children pray, especially those little ones.  It made me teary-eyed.  Some of the children want to pray aloud and some want to just pray in their hearts.   There is nothing better than hearing them pray.  One child was thankful for everyone—even called most of the everyones  by their names.  And that child has a world of everyones in her life.  I wondered how many folks that child knew but the child remembered to be thankful for all of them.  Really.  I am blessed when I hear those little voices sincerely talking to the Lord.  After that, The Girl gave a handout of a paper with space for a drawing that said at the bottom “I thank God for____________________.”   Okay so there’s wonderful things to be thankful for and the children are really into the project.  There’s the earth, myself, my mama, my heart, people that don’t die in a fire, and a cross.  So I compliment all of these and prepare to go to the copier to make more copies.  They like this project.  As I’m going out, I hear a child ask The Girl how to spell something and realize that on the cross picture it’s going to say “I thank God for Jesus dying on the cross.”  Well wow, I thought the cross would represent church or something like that but, no--thanks for Jesus dying on the cross.  From the mouth and heart of a 5 year old child.   Hmmm.  I return from my copying and comment on all the pictures and realize a yellow arch has been drawn over the top of the cross picture.  I say, “Well, you’ve drawn a sun over your cross.”  To which the child replies as he looks at me with a disbelieving face that I could be so wrong, “NO, that’s the Holy Spirit.”  Well duh.  How could I ever miss that?  Really.  I looked at The Girl and she just smiled and nodded her head with that incredulous look I have learned to recognize through the years. 

So that morning I was reminded that if it’s so easy for little children to talk so freely to the Heavenly Father, it should be just as easy for me.   I realized that yes, we can be thankful for the earth, ourselves, our mamas, our hearts, and even that no one died in a fire.  I was thinking that things such as fires can represent a lot of fear in my life.  I can be thankful that Jesus will calm those fears.  And I realized, too, that I fall so very short in sharing what God did for me by sending his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for me.  If a child can share so confidently, why can’t I?  Why DON’T I?

Yes, this past Sunday morning I was blessed.  And that is only one of the reasons I am thankful this day.


“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”  Mark 10:14

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