Carefree Kids

Children are strong. Their hearts heal more quickly - even their bodies.

I have realized this as I so often look a pictures of children in refugee camps, or squalid houses with no indoor plumbing. Kids with distended bellies, or rotting teeth. Young boys with bald patches on their heads because of disease. Yet rarely do I see any expression on their faces other than joy. Especially if they are in a group, they are laughing, playing, running until their weak bodies won't allow them any more. They are singing, though they may not even be able to stand up to do so. They are content.

Then I wonder what the parents, or caregivers, in those situations must feel. I have seen the face of a young mother at a refugee camp in the DRC, with 4 or 5 young kids clinging to her skirt. They seem at home. She seems tortured. Wondering constantly if her starving daughter will wake up in the morning, or remembering the life they used to have and wishing this had never happened.

But what if we were more like those kids? It's no wonder Jesus loves children so much. They understand him better, and accept his promises more readily. They forgive so quickly, fighting one minute and playing together again the next. They don't worry if someone tells them not to. They trust unconditionally.

Maybe we shouldn't be so concerned with growing up...