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From Childish to Childlike: Sharing is Caring

When my sister was born, I had to change a lot about how I saw the world.  I used to have my parents all to myself.  I did not have to fight for their attention.  I would enjoy their company.  I would also enjoy the possessions that they gave me.  I did not need to share them with anyone.  Once my sister was born, I had to learn how to share my parents and my possessions.  Honestly, it was not easy. Whenever I would feel comfortable with my stuff, my sister would want to play with them.  I was having fun, and she wanted to have fun, so she tried to take my toys from me.  I would push her away, and she would cry and hug my mom.

I thought that the toys were my source of love and security.  When I was good, my parents bought me toys.  My grandma would give me gifts every time I would see her.  My toys meant that I was loved.  My childish brain could not comprehend that my sister needed love too.  Not only that, but she loved me.  She didn’t only want to enjoy my toys; she wanted to enjoy my company as well.  She wanted us to have fun together.  She wanted to be loved by my parents’ with me, not instead of me.  It was not a competition between us.  However, I was so used to having my parents’ love all to myself that I did not know how to share it with other people.

I didn’t realize that my relationship with my parents was not dependent on what I received.  I was always going to be their daughter, and I was always going to be loved by them.  My sister also had that relationship with my parents, but in a different way.  It wasn’t until I became comfortable with my identity as my mom’s daughter that I was able to share my toys, my time, and my love with my sister.  Now, my sister and I are really good friends.  We share almost everything.  We have both learned that our identities are not found in our possessions.

Even as an adult, I struggle with taking pride in what I have.  One thing I take pride in is my joy.  I have a lot of joy; even when people are angry around me, I have the ability to be joyful.  However, I am so used to being the only joyful person around me, that it is difficult to enjoy being happy with other people.  Sometimes, I feel like my joy is an indicator of my relationship with God.  The more joy I feel, the stronger my relationship is with God.  So when other people take joy in the things that give me joy, I feel like I have less of God.  However, by sharing my joy with others, I am giving them the opportunity to experience the joy of the Lord as well.  Not only that, but I am allowing others to rejoice with me, so that I am not alone.  I am able to receive more of what God has for me; I experience true community as well as abundant joy when I share the joy that God has given me with other people.

As I go from childish to childlike, I remember that I am not the only one in the entire world that God wants to bless. He wants all people to experience his joy.  My relationship with God does not change because of my responsibility to share my gifts.  I am always going to be his daughter, and I am always going to be loved by him.  Only from true satisfaction in our relationship with God can we truly share the joy that he has given us, trusting that he will provide even more.

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From Childish to Childlike: Learning to Live in the Light

I posted this in another blog that I have, but I wanted to write it here because I wanted to continue my blog series.  Enjoy!

In the famous love chapter of the Bible, the Apostle Paul says that when he became older, he gave up childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).  This appears to be a call for us to let go of anything that is childish.  As you grow in spiritual maturity, you should put away things that produce spiritual immaturity.  However, Jesus tells us that if we do not become like children, we will not partake in the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3).  Jesus calls us to inherit the kingdom of God just like a child (Mark 10:15).

How can these two ideas work together?  How can we put away childish things and still remain childlike?

A few weeks ago, I went on a retreat with my class.  We were all given assignments to take on for eight hours.  After serious prayer, my spiritual director and her assistant decided that my assignment was to play.  They brought me to a challenge course, prayed for me, and walked away.  I looked around at what I saw:  steps made out of tires that were suspended a few feet off the ground; a tight rope literally inches from the ground, with a rope attached to a tree to help me keep balance; a few blocks of wood to serve as benches; and lots of rocks.  At first, I questioned this whole thing.  How could I abandon all the maturity, all the rules, all the responsibilities that I have acquired during my twenty-one years of living?  But then I realized…I had eight hours to do whatever I wanted.  No one was around either, so who was going to judge me?  The sunlight hit my face between the shade of the trees.  Joy exuded through me. I was ready.

For eight hours, I did everything I had loved to do as a child.  I skipped on the rocks that were scattered all around the ground.  Pretending the dirt was molten lava, I ran around the rocks as if my life depended on it.  Then, when I got bored, I started jumping off some boulders into the cool, moist dirt.  I got to a point where I just danced.  I didn’t care who was watching (if anyone); I was free to do whatever I wanted.

As I acted like a child, memories of my childhood came back to my head.  I meditated on a few things my parents said to me, as well as incidents I had in school.  God helped me to find healing to the hurts that I had felt, but he also reminded me of the good times that I had in my childhood.

Ironically, this experience helped me to transition to adulthood.  All of the things that hindered me as a child no longer mattered; I was an adult now, so I was able to shake off my limitations.  I could hear the memory of my parents saying, “That’s not safe.  If you do that, you’ll get hurt.”   On this retreat, I jumped off of rocks and fell in the dirt.  I did everything that my parents had told me was unsafe.  I did somersaults, which I was told could actually break my neck.  What held me back before was childish.  I was now free to do what I felt like doing.  I was now free to do what God was calling me to do.  I was now free to live like a child.

Because of this experience, I have become more childlike.  However, I have put away childish things.  Over these next few weeks, I will be writing about the difference between childlike and childish in more detail.  As I learn what it means to have childlike faith, and as I lay down my pride and put childish things to death, I hope to encourage you that it is possible to have spiritual maturity while maintaining the freedom of a child.

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My Voice Comes Out

Being a writer has been my dream since I was six years old.  I had been a good writer in elementary school and middle school, but once I hit high school, no one seemed to care that I was the best reader of my kindergarten class and the best writer of my first, second, and third grade classes.  In fact, most of my English teachers did not encourage me to be a writer.  One of my teachers in high school accused me of plagiarism.  After someone who should know a thing or two about English insulted my ability to write a good paper, it became difficult to accept compliments about my writing.  So I stopped.  Instead of writing poems and short stories after school, I would pick up my guitar or violin and sing songs that had already been written.  Instead of writing papers that expressed my voice, I wrote whatever my teachers wanted me to write.  I lost my voice.  Whatever awards I had won in the past did not matter anymore.  If I did not have the opportunity to use my voice, there was no way I could develop it.

In college, I studied Intercultural Studies.  I had developed a passion for learning about other cultures.  Nevertheless, writing followed me.  My friends asked me to look over their school papers.  Even though it was extra work, every time they asked me, I enjoyed using the editing skills that I had learned at a young age.  In my sophomore year of college, I decided to join the school’s newspaper staff.  I had been the editor-in-chief of my high school’s newspaper, so I thought I could try writing again.  Later in the semester, I applied to work at my college’s writing center.  Although I was nervous that I was not a good enough writer for this position, my colleagues saw potential in me that I had not been able to see in myself.

Eventually, my identity on my campus was the girl who worked at the writing center.  I loved helping students with their papers more than anything else.  Because of the criticism that I faced in eleventh grade, I was able to empathize with students who did not have confidence in their papers.  People began to come to me because they knew that I could see the good in their papers.

I still did not have confidence in my writing, even after becoming layout editor of my school’s newspaper and having students request me at my job.  My friends would tell me that I should change my major to English.  I made up excuses, but the truth is that I was scared of rejection yet again.  English professors, who have doctorates in English, should know good writing when they see it, and I was scared that they would not consider my writing “good.”  Besides, I enjoyed my Intercultural Studies major.  I did not want to change majors when I was already in such a great program.

My major actually encouraged me to break out of my fear of writing.  I was required to go out of the country and serve in some way overseas.  Before I went to Spain, I wrote a travel blog.  While out of the country, I journaled to process my feelings.  During siesta, I would sit on the couch and write (in English and Spanish) pages and pages of emotions and events.  I continued to journal when I returned from Spain.  I would write everything in my journal, from reminders to inspiring quotations to my own feelings.  I wanted to remember everything I heard and felt so that I could look back on it in the future.

My friends would notice my journals.  They were able to see that I had not only the ability but the passion to write.  My passion for writing was something I could not hide, no matter how hard I tried to pretend it was not a big deal to me.  During my last semester of college, I met a great group of people that helped me to feel confident in myself as well as in my writing.  They were able to show me that my English teacher in high school told me a lie that I believed for years: This paper is too good to be your writing.  You’re not THAT good. I had so many people encourage me, that the lie suddenly did not make sense anymore.  I realized that writing is not just what I do; writing is who I am.

So this is my voice.  I am not afraid of it anymore.  I welcome constructive criticism, but nothing can stop me from speaking what I have to say.  I have a faith in and relationship with God that will become evident in my writing; it is not something I will try to hide.  As you read this blog, I hope that it encourages you to know that your words matter.  You have the power to speak life or to speak death.  You can use your voice to ruin a person’s dream, or you can use your voice to help those in need.  I am going to use my voice to speak truth, hope, and love, and to encourage those who do not have a voice to stand firm in who they are.