ChildLike

My child amazes me. And not because she is my baby and a mother is always a little biased regarding her own kids... it's not that. I experience her in a way I have never experienced a child before. You see things from the outside, but you experience them with your own. You know everything about them. You know things others will never know... You know things they will never know. You take them through every minute of their tiny life, from the very beginning.

You see and experience and rejoice with every first, including that first pruning of their newly forming human nature. I think that is what amazes me most. You can look into those pretty blue eyes and see the wheels turning. You can watch her decide to take the chance of pleasing herself and suffer the consequences, or to deny herself and avoid said consequences. As a parent dishing out the discipline, you are always routing for them. You want them to choose right, not just because it saves you from having to correct them, but because you just overflow with pride.

Nobody knows a child like a nursing mother. There is no relationship more intimate than that. There is no feeling comparable to the love a mother has for her child. Every inch of them is ingrained in her mind; every crease, every hair, every expression. Every emotion expressed by a child is equally, if not more so, felt by the mother.

Oh my sweet child. She is my purpose, my responsibility, my teacher. She exemplifies true honesty and teachability. This is the innocence that we see in children. They are not without a selfish human nature. They are just completely submitted to a teacher. They lack pride in self beyond the simple joy of being praised for good. They do not question their teachers, though they do feel the tempting pull to please the flesh. They are the perfect students.

True child-likeness. The qualities of a child. Simplicity, Submission, Joy, Honesty, Humility, Teachability... An innocence that we seek. Because as "adults" we become so sure of ourselves, so confident in our own thoughts, abilities, decisions. A child's soft view is so refreshing to our hard, unchangeable minds.

As parents we see things our children cannot. Teachers see and know things their students do not. But adults... we see everything, we know everything, therefore we cannot learn and we cannot change. Children see the truth of the thing...

(For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord  -Is. 55:8)