Tag: children

when little children understand that badness needs a remedy

I enjoy anything Rain for Roots or Sally Lloyd-Jones. Just quality folks with the kind of creativity that touches the spirit of little ones, you know? Well, their collaboration with the Rain for Roots CD is brilliant and so recently I made it my soundtrack while I chauffeur little ones around the city.

One little one said (after a tantrum heavy hour),

“I feel bad…
because I was bad.”

I had to stop swaying to “Jesus is Alive” in the front seat to ask,

“What’s that, sweetie?”

“I feel bad…
because I was bad.”

Oh, the beauty and tenderness of a fragile heart! I melted a little bit and pleaded silently for wisdom – not the high brow kind, but the singing and dancing and leaping kind.

Have you ever been inside a moment where you know the Gospel is begging to be shared – just right there in front of you like an open door? Have you ever started to walk through in faith and found yourself on the threshold thinking, “This sounds CRAZY! How is this ever going to make sense?”

And then the longer you talk about it, the more you are convinced that you’re not making sense. That’s the moment you start praying simultaneously for God to graciously rip out your words and replace them with His – one of those supernatural things where the person hears something you might not even be speaking.

Just me? Hm.

But this little one, she was listening.

She was listening to another child who was once lost, but a child who was found by God. She was listening as I talked about why we feel bad when we are bad… about how our badness hurts other people. I told her that her badness hurt me, because badness always hurts people.

“Are you hurt?”

I said I was, but that there is something called forgiveness.

And that led to talking about God, who taught us how to forgive – who sent His Son out of love but was hurt in the worst way. His Son was even killed because of people’s badness.

“He walked on this ground?”

Yep, He walked on this ground – like a person.

“And then they killed him?”

Yes, that’s pretty bad, huh?

“Yeah, that’s really bad.”

This God who offered forgiveness for the badness of those who hurt Him also offers forgiveness to us if we believe Jesus is God’s Son and has the power to forgive us.

We pulled into the driveway and gathered everything from the backseat. As we were walking up the sidewalk, I said, “You know what? I’m so glad I saw you today. You are very special.”

“Even though I was bad?”

“Yes, even though you were bad.”

And especially because you were bad, dear child! I wanted to say. Especially because you understand there is badness in you that makes you uncomfortable and sad and sick with guilt. 

I drove away from that house with all sorts of prayers that God would replace my words with His and melt the heart of this little one so she can know His forgiveness and love. I prayed that she would understand what it means that Jesus is alive.

ALIVE and daily offering to break the cycle of badness with the weight of His forgiveness and grace. ALIVE.

Because badness needs a remedy and His name is Jesus. And He is ALIVE!

let LOVE fly like cRaZY
Posted on by Caroline 1

thoughts to make your heart sing

“Why does God need us to make a big deal of Him?”

Just take a listen to this devotional (designed for tikes) read by the author, Sally Lloyd-Jones. And then maybe spend some moments thinking about God’s invitation for you into His forever happiness. Today, He is inviting you to glorify Him because he knows what your heart needs to be happy… Him.

Sometimes, the simplest lessons are the most affecting. The mature believer is not one who is found to be the most well-read in doctrine or the most well-versed in competing theologies. No, the mature believer is one found accepting the invitation to glorify the Lord, believing boldly while knowing it is by grace that one receives.

Paul Tripp says it better in this clip, “Knowledge Does Not Mean Maturity.” He is speaking to pastors in the ministry, but I confess my puffed up chest about knowing things and “academizing the faith.”

He says, “You can be theologically astute and be dramatically spiritually immature.” That’s a crazy bold statement and it hits hard with the growing number of reformed thinkers.

And that is why I’m drawn humbly into the pages of a children’s devotional – knowing that I will come before the Lord always as a child. I will always need more of His wisdom, grace, strength, love, and kindness.

And He will always invite me to shake off my pretenses and dance with joy, unashamed, in His forever happiness.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of Thought To Make Your Heart Sing and don’t feel like you have to give it to a little one, either.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 0

grace means she giggles

Does this little blue-eyed baby know?

Maybe she thinks she is a baby super star and that’s why she gets chauffeured around town and has meetings with important people.

But does she know that we got stood up today – her and I in McDonald’s? Does she know that the important people didn’t make an appearance? Does she know that I wanted to cry but I smiled instead and that’s when she cooed right back.

Does this little blue-eyed baby know that her world is chaos?

Today, grace means holding on to God’s sovereignty and savoring the moments I can spend with a precious little one even if the moments were reserved for someone else. Today, grace means this little one has no idea she was forgotten. Today, grace means that this little treasure is known by God. Today, grace means she giggles and coos as I chauffeur her about.

Today, there is grace for my broken heart that smiles at this precious little.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.

The LORD watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!
(Psalm 146 ESV)

Posted on by Caroline 1

a tree I’ll grow

I had a no-show today and it’s tearing me up.

How can you just not show up to see your little baby girl? What is more important?

I’m shaking off my judgments and getting a good helping of humanity today – the unfinished, raw, and unruly kind of humanity. We are all capable of this, we are.

Still, it’s tearing me up.

This is the love I wish all the children could crawl into – the kind that never leaves and always stays, the kind of love that is older and stronger than this breath of life, the kind of love that has roots deep like a tree.

I don’t know who this song is sung to, but I’m singing it today.

Sometimes melodies are just better than plain words.

 

Posted on by Caroline 2

like magic

Everyone warned me – these kids were going to go ballistic when they left their mom.

My heart melted a little bit when the little guy practically raced into my arms at daycare; it was like he knew where we were headed. We gathered up all the day’s things (and mercy! the day has so many papers and mittens and shoes and stray toys) and then we gathered sister and got into the car.

I had been told they didn’t do well in the car, especially little Mr. Man. But apparently the other folks didn’t know the secret. The little fusses almost immediately died down when we set out on the road and I cranked the tunes.

It was like magic.

I saw heads bopping and I think I heard a few notes floating around in the backseat, too. We got into a groove, those kiddos and me. I finger played my steering wheel like animal on the drum and that was a big hit. Sister shouted accounts of the day’s events while brother cooed and I multi-tasked my prayers for safety and peace and joy and the classic “help!” And we made it. We pulled up still friends with dry faces.

After the visit with mom, we gathered all the day’s things once again (how they can get multiplied and strewn about, I do not know) and I braced myself for the breakdown. I had been warned that it would get apocalyptic up in my car once they said goodbye. I got quiet and let the farewells fill all the space in the air. Mom loves these littles, of that I am sure.

They got belted in my backseat and there was a moment we just kind of teetered there on the cliff. Would we fall over that edge and spend the car ride in apocalypse freefall or would we fly instead?

The music accompanied our ascent and we sang all the way home.

It was like magic.

Why is this round trip car ride so significant? Does it deserve to be published into anonymity on the internet? I say yes and let me tell you why.

These little ones have had life ripped out from under them like a rug. Everything familiar and everything “home” is no longer true – it’s all turned upside down. Nothing is as it should be and no one makes sense when they try to explain it to their sweet little souls.

And then they get into my car and I get overwhelmed at the moments we share. What do I say? How do I pour out dump trucks of love when they are belted in the backseat and we only have 30 minutes? How do I become someone familiar?

I’ve never been so thankful for Christian radio in my life. We sing, I drum, they hum, and we all bop our heads to the sound of truth making melody.

The reality is I don’t know. I just don’t know how to make them believe they are precious and all this mix up isn’t their fault. I don’t know how to tell them that their little people world is turned upside down because some big people made bad choices. I don’t know how to make them understand there is a God who made them, loves them, and wants to be known by them.

And so we sing.
And I pray with broken heart that the truth sinks in: Jesus loves them and keeps every promise He makes.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

…
Boys become kings, girls will be queens
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these
Then they will be brave and free
Shout Your name in victory
When we love, when we love the least of these
When we love the least of these

…

Break our hearts once again
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend
Won’t you look around
These are the lives that the world has forgotten
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open
…
If not us, who will be like Jesus
To the least of these
If not us tell me who will be like Jesus
Like Jesus to the least of these

**As part of my job, I regularly supervise interactions between children and parents with the hope that they can be reunified after the issues have been resolved.

Posted on by Caroline 6

eat your crusts | things we make up

I remember looking disdainfully across the lunchroom table at my childhood friends – whose plates were covered with crusts from the cheese sandwich that accompanied chicken noodle soup day.

I knew the crusts were the part of bread that would make me strong and healthy and smart. Inside the crusts were magic ingredients that only fools would refuse. I ate my crusts every time I had the chance and looked with pity at my friends who didn’t know or believe what I knew and believed about bread crust. My disdain came from the repeat record playing in my head, put there by grandparents and parents and other old relatives luring me into the accomplishment of finishing my food:

“Eat your crusts – they are the best part. That’s where all the good stuff is!”

Literally years later, I realized the crust is no more nutritious than the soft and squishy inner loaf. It sounds trivial, I know, but it was kind of a big deal. Of course, I’d seen bread made and even made it myself, but one day I realized that my belief that the crust is better was absolutely false.

I don’t hold it against my family (I had two things working against me: my gullible nature and my very real hope that I could eat things that would make me grow taller) because they never actually said that the crust was more nutritious or that it would make me healthy and smart. I had somehow established that on my own, maybe to rationalize my eating it while my friends in the lunchroom made cartoons with theirs on the long brown tables.

What I’m trying to say is… we want to believe something. I want to believe that my actions are motivated by a purpose and that that purpose is true. The trouble is when we start with wrong information or gather wrong information to support what we believe.

I remember (I am embarrassed to say how old I was) looking at a piece of bread, trying to find reasons why nutrition would travel to the outside of the loaf during the baking process.

I know bread crust is a funny place to begin thinking about research, but a child is sometimes very similar to a scientist in the sense that she is curious and motivated to find answers. As I read social science research about child welfare and family structure and inner city crime, I wonder about the motive behind the research.

It’s humbling to be wrong and even more humbling to discover you have piled up evidence (or made up evidence) to support something you believe.

Posted on by Caroline 2

childlike, but not children

worthy of chase?

I got interrupted on the corner of South Kellogg and 3rd Street last week, right in the middle of my blazing hot run.

I had my rhythm (desperate run the suns, walk the shades style because of the heat) and my focused race face. My next stop was Bandshell Park for the water fountain, but I was a good 5 minutes from that oasis when a scene unfolded in front of me. I felt like I was in an episode of Early Edition (that show where Gary Hobson receives the paper a day early and then prevents many disastrous headlines as a result). I didn’t get any forewarning, but I saw the scene play out as disaster and then rushed to change the ending and the image hasn’t left me since.

The little boy was racing down South Kellogg on his bike as the wind took a yellow balloon bouncing in front of him. His face was focused and nervous as he threw his bike down at the corner. The balloon bounced it’s way out onto the busy road and my words almost caught in my throat as I ran up beside him, “Wait, here buddy.” An SUV and a sedan sped by in two-way traffic as the boy heeded my warning and then when the coast was clear I nodded, “Go ahead, but hurry.”

He raced out to grab the less-than-inflated yellow balloon from the center line and raced back to get on his bike. I heard a “Whooopeee” as I crossed the road and continued my run.

Giddy anticipation of holding that yellow balloon pulled him racing down the sidewalk on his bike with reckless speed. The determined look in that boy’s eyes would have taken him right out into the middle of South 3rd, his little body completely vulnerable. I couldn’t get that look out of my mind as I raced on thinking about what almost happened. Maybe it didn’t… maybe I imagined how almost it really was, but it rattled me all the same.

It made me think about the tension between Mark 10:15 and Hebrews 6. The former reads, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And then in Hebrews we read, “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…”

We are to be “like a child” but we are to move on from elementary doctrine. We are and we aren’t supposed to be children and this little boy stretched that tension taut in my mind.

The beautiful things about his excitement and wonder are often things adults miss. A half-inflated balloon blowing across a busy road is definitely not worth the chase. In fact, I know very few adults who would get excited about a balloon in the safest of situations. We are not awed by simple things.

But, there is a reason the adult will not run into the street and it goes beyond an awe of simple things. The world has roughened and toughened the adult so his critical eye sees danger and weighs risks. The windblown balloon bouncing across South Third is not worth it.

When the little boy grasped the balloon with both hands and ran back to his bike, his eyebrows looked different. They were no longer furrowed with mission, but instead rounded with success. He got what he set out to get and his loud, “Whoooopeee!” was the beginning of his enjoyment.

We are to be like a child in our delight of good things, in our discovery of good gifts from the Father, in our reveling in restored relationship with the Lord. We are to be reckless even about throwing off the things that hinder and running the race marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1). Shame and fear have no place when we are called children of the Most High. But we are not to be children. We are not to remain ignorant about the world, but wise as serpents (Matthew 10:16). We are to throw all our childlike energies into knowing more about the Lord, finding out what pleases Him and doing those things (Ephesians 5:10). We are to let out our uninhibited “Whooopeeee!” as we relish the joys of living as children of the light (1 Thessalonians 5:5) who have access to the Father of Light.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

how many daisies?

Lake Michigan, 2012

“Natalie. Build. Castle!”

“Oh, are we building a castle?”

“Uh-huh! Yep! Build castle!”

“Wow, look at that ca–”

“Natalie step on it!”

“Yep, you sure did. Now what are we going to do?”

“Natalie. Build. Castle!”

And so it went this past week – back and forth from the water to the shore and back again. Dig, rinse, scoop, pour, stomp. Repeat.

There’s a beauty in a child’s monotony that big people miss. We want our actions to produce something that wasn’t there before we started. We want results that make sense.

And we are annoyed when rhythms appear (to us) to move without purpose. We don’t delight in doing simple things over and over again. There’s nothing delightful about laboring for underwhelming results.

We’ve lost our awe of little things.

But, oh, I wish you could have seen Natalie’s face! She got so industrious with that shovel and had such purpose with the big red bucket. She kept beautiful busy – building or destroying – and every once in a while she would invite someone else to join her. Try explaining to great, big  2-year-old blue eyes that digging, rinsing, scooping, pouring, stomping and repeating isn’t a good use of her time. Just try it.

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I wonder what he would say to my 2-year-old niece who does the same thing over and over again and watches the result like it’s the first time she’s ever seen it.

She isn’t expecting something different (she knows full well what is coming), but when “it” happens, she blooms with joy. Every time, like it’s the first time.

G. K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy Chapter 4:

“A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

I love it.

I love how Natalie could have the same amount of joy every time she built up the sand and every time the water washed it away… Every time I hid under the blankets and every time I appeared from underneath… Every time she said, “Natalie go outside, please” and every time she convinced someone to follow her.

Most of all, I love that “God is strong enough to exult in monotony.” Every once in a while we stop and admire the way the water comes in to the shore and splashes the beach, but God makes the water work in rhythm every day with crazy, consistent joy. I love to think that God “has the eternal appetite of infancy.”

Because how many times have we succumbed to sin, “growing old” with maturity marking our progress? How many times have we decided we don’t have time for monotony or aren’t interested or amazed by it anymore?

And how many daisies did God make today, delighting the same in the monotonous beauty of every one?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 9

Occupy Life: Stones

The eyes peeped out from under raised eyebrows with extra height from tippy toes. I was sitting square at my desk, imploring my computer screen to talk back when I asked it questions about facts and figures. Maybe it was because of my secretarial intensity that I didn’t notice the peeping eyes right away. But when I did, I willingly jumped into a game of hide-and-seek with the boy standing on the other side of my office window.

I spotted his Dad a few feet away, making sure the landscaping in front of the building reflected the glory of the Spring season. And down he disappeared and wide went my gestures as I “searched” for him. Then, he slowly rose with two rocks and a broad smile, as if to say, “Can you believe I found two rocks? And aren’t these wonderful?”

He placed them triumphantly on my ledge and I gave my most excited “Ah!” face in appreciation for his find. Then some more peek-a-boos and then up came those little hands with two more rocks. The same wonder filled his face, as if to say, “Can you believe I found two rocks? And aren’t they wonderful?” He set them on display just outside the first two.

It didn’t matter that he’d already given the first two rocks or that the parking lot had many rocks. His wonder at the rocks never waned because of quantity or accessibility – His wonder simply was because the rock was.

Two more rocks found their way to my ledge before he got distracted and traipsed off, but I left them there.

I want to remember that there is wonder in today, but not because of rarity or some arbitrary value. There is wonder in today because God is breathing it into existence. There are clouds and sunshine and meetings and people and rocks because God is willing them into being in this very moment.

And I want to hold each thing up in my hands triumphantly and see the wonder.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

This is another in a series of posts called Occupy Life. Each day you and I occupy physical time and space, making bold statements about what is most important in this life (whether we’re holding picket signs or not). Other entries: Spanish at an Irish Pub, pancake batter, tying ribbons, Alejandra,  Lunch Hour, Delaney and Roland or the original post Occupy Life: Things One Might Do While Unemployed.

Posted on by Caroline 2

“please stop doing anything that you like”

We were playing calmly (mostly listening to him list off all the things he would build when he gets older – houses, chairs, boats, picture frames, paper, castles, birthdays) when all of a sudden his little four-year-old hands came up like T-rex and he said, “Know what kinda monster I am?”

“Uh..no?” I couldn’t come up with something witty fast enough.

“The TICKLE MONSTER!” He just stood there with the gleamiest gleam in his eyes, both daring me to flee and daring me to stay for the attack (he was prepared either way).

So, I lept up from the ground and encouraged the chase. Over the toys, around the table, circling the stairway, through the front room and looping around the kitchen with a speedy, gleeful tail following me all the way. When I slowed ever-so-slightly he moved in for the attack, but not for long. He backed off quick and asked again, “Know what kinda monster I am?”

“Hm.. banana?”

“No, silly! I’m the TICKLE MONSTER!” The same gleamiest gleam filled his sweet blues and I got full of giggles, because this time I had my T-rex hands ready, too.

He chased and then I chased and he said, “No, IIIIIII’m the Tickle Monster.”

“Oh, but I like to be the Tickle Monster, too,” and I could see the wheels turning – this wasn’t the way the game played out in his head but he couldn’t figure out how to make me realize I was breaking his rules.

We played on – he chased and then I chased and then his little socked feet got slippery and he took a tumble on the wood floor.

That’s when he looked up with solemn, instructive eyes to say,

“Please stop doing anything that you like.”

Little Zachary was making the rules based 100% on what he wanted to do. The only way he could figure out how to respond to my rules (based on what I wanted to do) was to ask nicely for me to not follow my rules.

Hm.

I’m not sure we ever grow up. We just find a bigger vocabulary and adopt a new conversational dance. The bottom line is nearly always the bottom line: I’d like you to stop doing what you like and do what I like instead. At least children still have the innocence and decency to ask nicely.

Oh, the lessons we can learn from little ones.

Maybe a better question is, instead, “what is it that you would like to do?”

Posted on by Caroline 3