Faith Like a Child (eBook)

BECOMING LIKE CHILDREN

Back when my children were very young and my soul was lonely, I gathered a group of women once a month in my home for dinner and a book discussion. Dinner was on my grandmother’s fine china, and the food was Colorado luxurious, plenty of it and hearty for winter, worth lingering over for hours. Some of us found childcare, others brought their littles. I remember a random comment made while chatting at the dining room table.

“When Jesus said, ‘You must become like children to enter the kingdom of God,’ surely he didn’t mean that,” one mother said, pointing to her son—who was picking his nose and wiping it on my couch. We all laughed that kind of laugh that said, “We hear you, sister, and thank God that’s your kid.”

We are made for experiencing God. Our first and most natural inclination as children is to connect with God in deeply uniting yet often ordinary ways. We adults have much to learn. This book will explore what it looks like to re-member (to revisit and revive what has been part of us) our childhood selves, to let the Spirit heal the childhood wounds that have calloused our hearts. We will re-member the natural patterns of our childhood selves that enabled us to live with freedom in God’s wonder-filled presence. We will unpack seven general ways of being that are natural to childhood and suggest healing spiritual practices that can help us grow a whole life with God. We will begin by exploring a shape of spiritual formation that addresses both the wonder we were born with and the wounds that could use some tender care. We will revisit what it looks like to develop a healthy attachment to God and how to cultivate that attachment through play, imagination, creativity, wonder, humor, and simply paying attention.

Each of us must do this essential work, and especially those of us who work or live with children—because children can spot a fake at fifty paces. We can only accompany children where we have gone. If we haven’t re-membered our childhood selves, the distance between ourselves and the children in front of us will grow.

CHILDHOOD AS A WISDOM WAY

“Aunt Polly, would you tell me one of your earliest memories?” I asked while shoveling Milky Way cake into my mouth as fast as possible—I needed a free hand to take notes.

“That’s a hard one . . . let me think,” she replied. Even well into her nineties, her mind was as sharp as her cane.

Family reunions in the Ringener (my mom’s side of the family) way are mainly about cake. There might be brisket, and various versions of potato salad, but there will always be cake. And there will be stories, tall Texas tales that are mostly true. The story I heard that day from my great-aunt Polly stirred something deep in me. I was just beginning to wonder about our early experiences of God and those tender memories that we hold dear throughout our lives: the memories that we may never tell another soul, but that we tell ourselves during hard times, when our knees become wobblier than we’d like.

She reminisced to me:

When I first heard this, I too easily dismissed her experience, falling into the same assumptions as the aunties, thinking she didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. It’s true that children don’t fully understand death, but maybe they know more about God than adults have previously understood. Could it be that Polly already encountered God in her young life? Could it be that overheard snippets of Jesus stories enlivened her imagination and cultivated a connection with God? Maybe little five-year-old Polly understood what was necessary for the moment. Maybe her young faith held her in that knowing.

ENGAGING THIS BOOK

In this book we will be exploring the ways of children and reengaging with our own memories of childhood. Do be gentle with yourself. Some memories that come into the light of Christ might be full of delight and forgotten joy, but some might remind you of wounds long buried. Walk gently and let the Spirit lead. Deep healing of tender places can’t be rushed or ramrodded. Go slow, go easy.

At the end of each chapter is a smorgasbord of practices to reunite you with your childhood self and the eternal one who loved you into being. Choose one practice, dear friend, and let it work deeply into who you are. There is no such thing as spiritual Olympics, and anyone who tells you differently is selling you something. (Yes, I know you bought this book. The stick in my eye is quite bothersome.) You can return to the other practices at a later time. My hope is that you will wander through these practices over and over for the next two decades, just long enough to grow young again.

Two tips as you begin: first, be around children. If you don’t live with any, you can volunteer to teach the children at your church, or volunteer to help a child learn to read in an after-school program, or volunteer to babysit for some tired-looking parents you know. I can describe children’s unique ways of being and offer strategies for you to live out these ways, but spending time with children will lead you much deeper. I’m a better typist, but they know the way by heart. Simple observation and engagement will go a long way. Second, find a traveling companion—a soul friend who can listen and help you to hear yourself and God. These friends will stay with us in the hard spots and celebrate our gains. A formal relationship of this kind is called spiritual direction; if you are looking...