To Be a Child Again

Will You take me back to the beginning? Back to my wide-eyed gaze and childlike faith. Back to when I trusted You as a Father, and when I delighted in being Your daughter. Will You take me back there?

There’s a lot of mess You’ll have to climb through, and a lot of layers to dig past. Disappointment, doubt, cynicism, melancholy…but will You reach for me even there, and help me to see You again?

Remind me how Your joy once brought tears to my eyes. How my heart danced because it had never felt a Love like Yours. How I couldn’t help but sing because I’d never tasted something so sweet and so good. Remind me how surprised I was by the joy and the healing and the hope that You brought to my life. How I told You I’d go anywhere with You, and how I whole-heartedly meant it.

And I know You haven’t changed, that You’re still the same God. You’re the same God who fulfilled promises I once danced on. The same God who entered into my pain and sat in it with me. The same God who brought healing and restoration to all my desolate places. The same God who promised to never leave, and to never give up on me.

I’m driving alone late at night and I see a shooting star. It flashes across the sky utterly unannounced and unexpected, right before my eyes. I hear Your voice, “look up, child.” I feel goosebumps forming on my arms and tears fill my eyes.

I read the words of Isaiah, “He comforts all her waste places,” and I cling tightly to what’s true.

In a cloud of disappointment and apathy and weariness, I see Him pursuing me.

He says, “Come. Come all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”

Rest is what my heart is longing for. Rest and the ability to be a child again.

Because a child trusts her Father without hesitation. A child doesn’t need to know all the answers because she knows her Father will take care of her. A child loves her Father with all that she has and believes Him when He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” She delights to be with Him, and she looks up at Him with a big smile and a wide-eyed gaze, excited and ready for the next adventure. She freely dances and sings before Him, because she knows she’s both fully known and fully loved.

Will You show me how to dance again? Would You teach me how to be a child again?