Like A Little Child

As I stood in worship this morning, I was overcome with nostalgia for childhood.

I should start with more explanation.

We were singing a song, or better said the worship team was singing a song none of the rest of us know, which meant that we were paying attention to the words, or at least I was. Pretty sure the few adults around me were, too. I say adults, because my kids were 1) reading a novel 2) reading Genesis (oh, my word--that again) 3) staring at me quizzically and saying things like "I don't know this song." All while more than one grown-up was wiping away tears, myself included.

Granted, many of my tears were due to an overwhelming desperation regarding our move or lack thereof.

And I was struck with how simple faith is when you're a kid--but not exactly for the obvious reasons that many of us have been taught. Faith of a child, simplicity and uncomplicated belief. Or maybe for all that. But in that adults can understand those songs that say something like "here I am, again, a failure, I've screwed it up again and I don't know why You keep taking me back." Even when that isn't what the song says, it screams through my mind.

I have a friend who opens every prayer with something like "here I am again, addictive screw up, depending only upon your unfailing forgiveness for which I don't deserve."

That was free. And hers is better, but we haven't prayed together for over a year and her words have left me, even if her meaning hasn't.

Anyway, as I was puzzling over how unaffected the children and teen around me were by the words of this song it struck me that kids have so much less baggage. The older we get, the bigger the burdens, one sin heaped upon another.

Don't get me started on all the sins I've committed simply due to the fact that I have children. Children are not for the selfish. Though I have a feeling that the world would not have been populated if that stopped people.

I have a friend who once said you have no idea how selfish you are until you get married, and even then you have no idea how selfish you are until you have children.

That was free, too.

I know that all sin is sin in the eyes of God, but man it sure was easier to believe he forgave me when my sins were simple little things like whacking my sister for being annoying. Simple, clear cut. Action, consequence. And then we grow up and start reading the rest of the Bible and man, sin begins in the heart and whether you paste on a smiley face with that woman you CAN NOT STAND, God knows that in your fantasies you are telling her off and might strike out and hit her also and it makes your heart black and rigid and you can pretend it isn't there, but that doesn't make it so. And then you learn things like Don't Take Communion If A Brother Has Anything Against You and, geez, when you know that, WHY does ANYONE take it?

I'm paralyzed, man, paralyzed.

I'm just trying to function in this world. Sometimes I pretend I have it all together. Most of the time I don't pretend, but often even in those times people treat me like I do, or should, anyway.

(I just screamed at my kids who all decided that NOW they needed something from me after ignoring me for the last 15 minutes when I DARED to pick up my computer, so I'll wrap this up lest I never be able to take communion again.)

Anyway, faith like a child is more than blind belief like they blindly believe in everything including, but not limited to The Boogy Man, The Easter Bunny (even when Mom says there's no such thing), and Jesus, but trusting that He forgives not only children who whack their sisters, but children, masked as adults, who want to whack the people in their lives and instead smile while harboring evil against them in her heart.

Yikes.