"Look! It lights up!"

Except ye become as little children...

I found a picture the other day.

Slightly faded and framed in wood, a small child dressed in a ruffled nightgown reaches out to touch the lights on a Christmas tree. Looking closely, I can make out snow on the trees outside the window and berries on the bushes.

The picture, according to my mother, is of me – taken Christmas time 1991; though, how she can tell the difference between my sister and me at such a young age remains a mystery. Since I was nigh impossible to pose, my grandfather must have caught me at exactly the right moment, reaching for something that, to a small child, seemed beyond understanding: a tree that lights up.

I look after children this age and older every week, and every week I watch as they discover something new.

Allow me to introduce you to three year old James- a little hellion; he always manages, somehow, to find his way into something newly exciting and most likely destructive. “James! The windows are not for climbing. And how on EARTH did these scribbles end up on the newly painted white walls? I'll just strategically place this chair right. here. No one will ever have to know..." Nonetheless, his sly little grin never ceases to make me smile. 

When I first met Will, he had yet to learn how to crawl. Instead, he would throw his pudgy little body face first into the floor and wiggle there, hoping, I'm sure, to make it to the more interesting side of the room. Now a handsome two year old, I marvel as he toddles as fast as his legs will take him to that other side to grab the toy school bus. He then runs back to me, and, holding up his prize, proudly proclaims, "Yellow bus!"

Andrew and his brother, Alex, never stop wondering. Before Andrew could talk I would pick him up and let him touch the sides of the indoor tree house that was too high for him to reach. His small hands would run over the smooth wood and grab hold to test the sturdiness. I could see the wonder on his face as he familiarized himself with a part of the world that had always seemed too high to reach.

Alex started reading at a very early age. How a five year old can learn the scientific names of every dinosaur and still have time to play Jedi knights with me I will never know.

Vincent is nine. I cannot describe to you the beauty that hides behind the eyes of this kid. He's smart, funny, caring, and occasionally obnoxious. He eats up Scholastic News for Kids like I've given him some kind of Hook-like feast of the ten-year-old gods. His occasional bursts of "I-don't-like-you-anymore” can’t compare to the moments when he yells "Katie!" and runs over to topple me sideways with a hug. Every time he learns something new – I mean really learns – I can literally watch the knowledge fill his eyes and travel throughout his face. "They found how many fossils? Woah, that's a lot!"

Sebastian, Maddie (x2) and Jackie, Harley, Brentson, Tommy, Marco, Samuel, Hannah, and Logan. So much learning, so many stories to tell, so many stories yet to be written.

Simplicity is the truest form of expression. Children reach without hesitation, they move forward without asking permission of themselves, and they leap without fear of falling. Their wonderment knows no social norms and they live in a constant state of adventure that only newness can provide. I want that. And I want that for you. Childhood, in its most important sense, is a constant state of newness. Awe keeps us alive and young well into old age. Lately, for many reasons, I have felt like that child looking up at a world that is sometimes too high for me to reach. However, my shortness ("You're not short! You're feet touch the ground. Heh." – Dad) doesn't frustrate me, nor does the height of the world scare me. Instead, it makes me feel alive. Rather than feeling overwhelmed, I look at the world like it holds all of the adventures God placed in our hands.

So. Maybe next time you see a Christmas tree, take a moment to smile and say, "Hey look! It lights up!"

We Need Never Walk Alone

Sometimes, the world flows so heavily that we forget how to live, how to breathe, and how to be present. It falls so slowly, yet so quickly, that we don't even realize what is happening. We lose sight of what is most important. We lose perspective, and therein lies the worst of it: this loss of perspective results in the loss of one of God's most important creations- friendship.

We fold ourselves into a space where we cannot move or breathe, so tightly that we might even begin to feel comfortable there. We know that there is more to life than this empty space that we have filled with ourselves, but we can't remember how to find the way out. We crave the light that we used to know, but fear that it is only a memory. In doing so we forget to leave space for the people we love.
We don't stop caring about our friends, but we forget how to give them the room they need to cry, to grow, even to be left alone. We burden ourselves and in doing so we burden others.

I use the term "we" because it seems easier that way. It's kind of a cop out. I'm sorry. When I write "we" I really mean "I".

Much of the time, those burdens are not ours to carry. We forget that there is something larger than ourselves, something bigger that we cannot see, touch, or "feel". I don't believe that He can really have a true name. God. Lord. Abba. Father. Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. I Am that I Am.  He is there to carry us when we fall, to pick up the pieces when we manage to shatter ourselves all over again. This is an easy lesson to forget, I think. Even when we know of this true, loving and ever-present God, life quickly manages to get in the way.

I am guilty of placing burdens on both myself and others. Burdens that are not ours to carry.

We need never walk alone.

Onward and Upward

So, funny story...


I am a writer. Not necessarily a good one or a bad one, but I put my thoughts on paper because I have never been particularly talented at stating them aloud. Recently I realized that the dull ache sitting in the back of my throat had traveled to my heart and was beginning to spread throughout my entire being. Twenty years of thoughts, words, and questions were stuck in my body and were threatening to explode.

So I am writing. For everyone this time.

Hopefully I don't explode all over you. That could get kind of messy.

Here we go.