The Many Faces of Miri

Isn't she great!! This is what I love about kids - they are free of inhibitions, completely themselves, wonderfully animated. She is neither cynic nor skeptic, neither optimist nor pessimist, neither idealist nor realist - she's purely herself, free to be you and me, isn't that how the old 70's song goes? Now me on the other hand, I tend to be an optimistic realist with a hint of an idealistic mindset that sends me off in various directions and paths. But Miri, I love that she is none of these at this point in her life; I love that her emotions are so raw, that she can go from immense joy to complete frustration in a matter of seconds and that these emotions are in no way pretentious but in every way pure. Fresh from the hand of God is what I always say. I love that she kisses anyone who she says "night, night" to without discrimination, that she can carry on a dramatic and expressive conversation on the phone with no one at the other end, that she reads her books passionately as if she were preaching to a mass with her hand extended using the few words that she knows and making up the rest. I love her approach to life at this stage - arms extended to everything in her little world. "Let this beauty stay with her, let this freedom she posesses remain with her as she grows!" This is my prayer.

Although this brings me great joy I think that this is also the hardest and most painful part of motherhood - realizing that one day she will experience pain, rejection, criticism and that perhaps some of the freedoms that she has now may fade as she becomes self-aware. This makes me cry. The other day I looked intensely into her rich brown eyes while she ate her lunch and told her of my love for her, and God's too, but that she would one day experience pain and suffering (pretty pathetic, huh) as I cried I told her "Miri, but our hope is in Christ - that he will walk with us in our suffering." Somewhere in the middle of all of my blubbering she said "hmmm" rather pensively as if she were taking in every word her mama said and at the end of this I asked "do you understand?" to which she promptly and very seriously stated "Yah, Yah, Yah," with several quick nods. A wise little soul.

How does one maintain that innocence and freedom authentically? In some ways it's not wise to extend our arms wide open to the world but often we almost err on the opposite end. We become cynical of others - the news warps our sense of reality and we live with fear or mistrust. We develop various coping mechanisms - some healthy some not, and we become changed and/or guarded by our circumstances. We judge others and discriminate. As self-awareness settles in us we become more selfish knowingly. It is a constant challenge, perhaps an impossibility to return to the innocence that we all at one time shared. I guess my hope is that perhaps heaven will be this clean slate again with the returning to innocence exhibited by arms flailing and extended, running unabashed into the arms of Jesus - free once more.