Children and God

It's been awhile since I've updated this and a lot of life has happened but I felt this long post needed to be shared:


You know how kids just can’t get enough of you? Your children hang-on you, constantly want your attention and many of my friends can’t even pee without their children being present. It’s exhausting. Those of you who have children know this all too well and I hear about it often but that doesn’t stop my longing for my own children.

I spend all day with children and I come home wishing I had my own and a spouse to share things with, but that’s not my reality. Robin Williams once said "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone” So whether one feels alone because you’re single, married or because of the stress of your struggles God meets us there. I know I am getting old because I have read so many books this past year that I have begun forgetting the titles. I can quote them but I can’t tell you where I got it from, although I can usually tell you the author. Perhaps one of my favorites was by Elisabeth Elliot on loneliness. She spoke of how in all 3 of her marriages she felt lonely in different ways. I believe loneliness is a result of sin entering the world and we all feel it at times.

We often talk about God as our Father but do we ever see him as our spouse mother, sister, brother, or even child?

Strangely enough these past few weeks I’ve seen him as more of a child. Children are inquisitive, accepting and just want to be with you. They are grateful for anything, whether it’s kind words, candy, time with them, creating memories or just nurturing them when they don’t feel good. God is that way too.

He accepts us. He curls up in our arms. He cuddles on the couch beside us when we are alone. He wants that time with us. He loves when we discover new ways of sharing Him and ministering to others. He wants to please us, after all it says he wants to give good things to those He loves in the Bible.

He writes the thank you note, that just simply says I love you, there are no strings attached. He cries ugly tears when the day or world is just too much not because it’s too much for him but because He has compassion and he’s the God who sees. He wants to jump on the trampoline and show us his newest technique to love our friends and enemies. He wants to be heard.

Children live for each day, moment by moment. They only see the immediate needs for the most part. And when life gets rough they cry out. He wants us to be thankful, playful and enjoy life and He did all these things and does them WITH us.

Have you ever seen children plotting a surprise? That’s how God is, constantly thinking of creative ways and saying how can I help my people? How can they feel more loved?

This past week has been a lot for various reasons. And I’ve struggled with feeling needy and the weight of can I do this thing called life?

But he showed up in my lowest moments with friends who reminded me of children. Jess came over and helped me organize my room and get rid of all the little things as well as pack after her busy day at work. Children also love to organize and want to help. Children do that all the time in the classroom.

He showed up in serving- My friend Heather listened as I tried to separate fact from fiction in my mind and rationally make a plan for the week. Both her and Jess even did my laundry for me. Just like how God is eager to help and give me good things so I can be the best me, my best friends were/are.

Tuesday was a lot. To be honest at the end of the day as I got home I didn’t even want to go on. It took a lot of energy to make it through that evening and Wednesday with the pressures of this world but I was reminded even Moses and Elijah felt that way at points.

Moses in Numbers 11:11-15 said “Why pick on me, to give me the burden of a people like this? Are they my children? Am I their father? Is that why you have given me the job of nursing them along like babies until we get to the land you promised their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people? For they weep to me saying, ‘Give us meat!’ I can’t carry this nation by myself! The load is far too heavy! If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now; it will be a kindness! Let me out of this impossible situation!”Children also aren’t afraid to ask for help when life gets rough, just like Moses. He wants us to ask for help.

Just like Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 as he runs away from someone trying to kill him, the weight becomes too much. “Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day, and sat down under a broom bush and prayed that he might die.“I’ve had enough,” he told the Lord. “Take away my life. I’ve got to die sometime, and it might as well be now.”

He has gotten me through a lot of impossible situations. However, I felt like Moses and Elijah last week and I am making it through. He sent provisions, but even Moses wanted to die at some point because carrying any weight of this world is too much for our human bodies. That’s why He gives us friends.

We don’t talk about these passages enough but I believe for most people the world gets too much and these thoughts race in our head, I know at least they do in mine. How can I feed a nation when I can’t feed myself? How can I provide when I am so tired I don’t want to go on? Well friends the answer is you CAN'T! We have to turn our eyes to Jesus.

I sat this morning talking with a friend in another state on the phone about how I saw God as a child. We talked about my struggles and I came to the realization that I just feel so needy sometimes. I am not afraid to ask for help because I need it but I am afraid of being greedy. I see so much greed around me that I am trying to ask myself some questions first. Is this an immediate need? Is this a want? How does not having or having this affect my ability to work and minister to others? Giving is easy, asking can be really hard. I fear rejection, judgment, criticism or an inability for others to relate, making me more lonely.

Asking for clarity and help as I learn the American work system is one thing, but asking it for my physical needs is another. It’s hard.

I believe that God asked for things. He didn’t need to but He did, that’s why He had 12 disciples. So as I continue to pay off my car I choose to believe He is going to provide and if He doesn’t that doesn’t mean He loves me any less. I choose to believe that He accepts me like a child and asks me questions constantly to realign me with faith and strength me. I am trying to choose to be content with what I do have rather than worry about what I don’t.

I am making a conscious choice to see the ways He provides like the teacher sneaking up behind me as I helped her out with duty the other day and setting her head on my shoulder and arms as she whispered thank you in my ear. The co-worker who sent me a text saying something along the lines of “I know things are rough right now, but I am proud of you and admire the way you keep pushing along.” My principal gave me 30 minutes to figure out some last minute details of moving. Another coworker offered to bring me my microwavable lunch when I ran out of time to even heat it up because I was trying to make sure I had water in my new apartment. And various other ways this week that He provided my Manna when I didn’t want to go on.

So friends if you’re anxious, if you’re tired come to him like it says in Mathew 11:27-30 "Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. Only the Father knows the Son, and the Father is known only by the Son and by those to whom the Son reveals him. Come to me and I will give you rest—all of you who work so hard beneath a heavy yoke. Wear my yoke—for it fits perfectly—and let me teach you; for I am gentle and humble, and you shall find rest for your souls; for I give you only light burdens.”

For me he is giving me glimpses of the Son. Most of my friends are married and I’m on about my fourth round of seeing people married, have children and longing for a family of my own. While I don’t have one right now I still dream of it.

If you listen to podcasts about people doing things for the kingdom of God you always hear about spouses and how they wouldn’t have made it through without them or how he provided a new spouse for a widow. I have yet to hear one about a person single in ministry. I know so many who have made and still continue to make an impact. So whether you are single, married, have children, lost children or just need a reminder. He meets us and says it’s okay to grieve what you don’t have. I meet you in your grief.

He says I am the spouse that curls next to you to make you feel secure, I am that child who accepts you without strings, I am that mother who lulls your tears, I am that Father who directs your ways, I am the brother/sister who wants to play. He is all we need and today I am doing my best to make the conscious choice to believe this and hope you do too! Even if you can't, He still loves you and meets you in your neediness.