With a Child-Like Wonder

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'I'm a child in my Father's Hand!
He holds me within His palm;
To know that He knows every grain of sand,
And knows me too gives me a sweet calm;
In His Hands, He holds the stars true,
So can He not hold me secure too?'

There comes a time in one's life where childhood dreams and imaginations crumble into pieces of fragmented glass, into the inner ashes of the soul and are found buried deep down as lava and molten rock, cold, unfeeling, even at times hurting. Our dreams vanish through the fog of the window of our hearts and minds into the cold reality of the 'grown-up' world. How truly it was that the Apostle Paul wrote, 'When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but, when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.' - Corinthians 13: 11-13 NKJV

In this stage of my life, I've been struggling with losing those tiny bits of the child in me, as I face more responsibilities and goals than I ever did when I was younger and realize that many things in life that I had seen through the idealistic spectacles of childhood are in fact gritty hard stuff and sometimes just really unpleasant. The grown-up world can be so confusing and complex and 'tricksy' and at times I desperately feel that I don't want to understand it. Yet somehow it seems that from now on I shall feel like I am loosing a little bit more of the element of my childhood that I've clung to for so many years and grow 'old, realistic and serious'. And that fact kind of hurts you know. True, I still have many very childish things which I actually wish and long to 'put away' - immaturity and silliness on life, an irresponsibility that the world sees as the essence of what kids and teenagers are made of (take cue from Jenny's post here which entirely echoes my thoughts on this subject). No, I am sorry, but I do want to be grown-up and mature about life. I want to grow in my faith, as the Scriptures say, in the inner man - like a soldier and a warrior! 

But there is another facet, another aspect of 'the child' that I do not wish to let go of, the 'child' that Jesus spoke about. I long to treasure in my heart the child-like, the heart-felt, the strong and yet simple trusting faith, the love and joy in my Heavenly Father: a childlike trust and sensitivity to His Presence and His Voice not only in the big things of life, but also in the normal, mundane and even apparently silly stuff of every day. I remember those moments as a child sensing Him with me and knowing the quiet joy of His love as I tended my little baby dollies, or play-acted fantastical stories in our sunny little garden; where every blossom was a bloom from a palace garden and every piece of straw had some beauty and delight; where the little ants lining up in perfect order on the path seemed like such a profound wonder. I don't want to give that up. I do not want to loose the awe and wonder and recapturing and treasuring the splendor of God in the life He has given me. Of course, part of life as God made it is growing up - maturing - and it is silly and pointless to cling to childish 'dreams' and idealistic fancies: and yet I also believe there is a treasure in childhood that is beyond 'childish': it is seeing life with wide-eyed amazement and joy at every fresh petal, every smile, every breath of air... and see the face of God, His heart in those around me, my parents, my sisters or friends in the kitchen and in the bedroom; the joy and wonder in the mundane and routine.

But you know, I am starting to realize that the older and stronger I grow in Jesus, the Source of all Life and Joy, the more 'young' and 'child-like' I will be about the world, and the more I will be able to retain the Hope and Joy of my life in Him. I will be able to experience an even more beautiful appreciation for life (the painful, the joyful and the difficult), and gratitude and wonder in God. And my hope that is in God is this. It is that though I now see in a mirror and dimly and seem to loose a lot of that 'child-like wonder', I shall know face to face one day. I shall be amazed all over again. Now I know only in part, as in a fragment of long lost poetry, but then I will know just as I also am known. I may not understand or know now but as through dim windows and mirrors I know from the bottom of my heart that I am held within the hands of my God and I can believe that what He says is true. Though all fails and all turns to darkness, He is the same and unchanging in His love and purpose and character. His love - a love so great that every single love on this earth when compared with His fade into shadows, half-phantoms and ashes - is so strong, so fearful and beautiful and wonderful, so self-sacrificing and unfailing that I am nothing but overwhelmed at the thought that this all-consuming, Holy Love has been poured out and given to insignificant, sinful worms of His creation...to me. And so abundantly, so freely - indeed, He makes all things new and beautiful!

And all I can do is bow down and worship - and be amazed, with a child-like wonder, all over again. 

“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.” 

- G. K. Chesterton 

P.S. this post was based off a journal entry in my diary sometime ago, so if it seems melancholic, a bit random and not very cohesive, I beg your pardon... this is, in a more refined way, the format a typical journal entry of mine looks like - so you are catching another one of those glimpses of my life through reading it!