Skyscrapers

     There's something that comes over me when I am around kids, it's something I can hardly describe, a deep humbling, a deep glimpse of how God must see me, of what He longs for in my life in so many ways for which I have no words, but this is possibly too small to be how He truly sees us, His children, probably too little for Him, a vast and endless being... Yet, I see them, the way they play, the way the cry, the way they love, the way they fail, the way they grow, the way they change, the pain they start facing as sin begets sin, and they fight, struggle to keep going, fighting for life, fighting for love, fighting to be who they were made to be.
     I have seen some kids who are unafraid, and I have seen kids heavily marked by sin, scared so early, even babes, calloused to the world. Then it hits me, how much weight I carry on my hands every time I interact with them, and how much they are like a breath of fresh air to me, a breath of life and hope. They make me sit at the feet of my eternal Lover, the One who molded me before anyone laid eyes on me, the One who gave all He had so I could have a way to love Him face to face, and as I sit at His feet I beg to Him to pour out of my pores (pun intended) to be more than all the fear and sin I carry, to show Himself incarnated in me, so they can know Him, see Him, love Him and be loved by Him.
     Then there's the effect I feel after I have been around kids, I seem to have a strange sense of wonder, like a heightened sense of wonder. I see the world with different eyes, maybe eyes I always have, but that I usually quiet down, in fear of hoping, in fear of dreaming, in remembrance of pain, and sin and all that goes swirling around with that. So today Mom wanted to go drive around Downtown and I thought, why not, I would love to explore for a bit, break away from my usual routine and not think of my gut first.

Skyscrapers...

     The first time after my family had moved to the US, to this city and we drove around below these sky-high creations, at five years old, I was amazed, at awe... the height of these beautiful structures. They were my favorite things to see when Dad would decide to drive around the city, I never knew why he wanted to, but I always loved it. For me it was a time to dream, to delve into a world that spoke of stories I never knew, stories I could find in my own mind. Thinking of this today I never thought I would be the type of person to lose that state of wonder before majesty and grandeur or beauty.
     As time passed, these beautiful structures came to mean something else. The shadows casts down by these buildings seemed endless, they seemed choking, they seemed like everything I felt I could never grow beyond... Somehow they made me think of something ready to collapse over me, something people used to drop their lives into death, something that symbolized human power and a struggle to survive, a struggle for money and greed that left so many in its wake. Suddenly I saw these buildings and I didn't think of who imagined them. I thought of who was trapped inside of them, who had been crushed by them. I wondered what building was too old, too ugly and abandoned which one didn't make the cut and deserved to no longer be nurtured into being healthy, whole and not condemned.
     Then I felt like a child again, but not the ones I was around today, full of life, willing to fight, willing to explore and feel, and learn but the children asleep because they've lived a life that has "taught" them they are to not trust, to never engage others, to never think they are worthy of love, and thus don't expect anything from anyone. A baby who gave up on crying because no one ever came when he cried, a girl silent and uncommunicative because no one was there to listen and there was only someone to hurt her, use her, or forget her. Then I asked God, is this who I am now, a child frozen in fear, not a child living in love? I am both, suspended in the state of dreaming, yet also staring down the reality of what sin does to people, and I wanted to crash down on myself, but I wanted Him to be more than me, always more than me, beyond my hurts and my scars, beyond the things I can do to continue a domino effect of hurt, especially when I face such dear little ones. Jesus said we are to be like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. I want to learn to be a child again, and I want to be a woman worthy to hold their hands through this journey.
     It's a rare thing that makes me want Jesus more than I can even feel in my bones. I hate saying that. It's a rare thing that makes me fold before Him fully submitted, paralyzed knowing everything I could do would be so wrong, and everything that would happen that is good is truly Him living in me, and truly Him shielding these tender little ones from all the ick I carry, and I can't get beyond that thought when I think of my little Kid's church classroom. There's nothing that pushes me to want to be a better woman and really learn who Jesus is, with all His eternal endlessness, and try to put a crumb of His beauty into this little being, a smidgen more of His love into my fingertips, in the creases of my lips, in the depths of my heart to overflow and give them even a bit of what they deserve so they can see even a spec of Him, and know a spec of what I know about Him, which is almost nothing, and long for Him, as I long for Him.