Tag: Childlike-ness

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Today, I felt my whole world was right again.

You, something about you, makes me feel complete.

I laughed more than I have in a long while, it seemed.  Felt that thrill in conversation I only get with you, of hearts connecting, uplifting, encouraging.  Carrying each other’s burdens and somehow diminishing them in the process.

I’ve decided–your soul and mine are the same.  Sisters, meant to belong together since the beginning of time.  No, beyond time.  Before it.

I am happiest when we’re side by side.

And today, you confirmed it again–you are too.  There’s something special about the thing that exists between the two of us.

You understand me, head to toe, inside to out.  I can tell you anything and you’d still love me.  More than that, you’d understand.  You’ll be there for me through everything, when life feels like walking through mountain-mist rainbows or slogging through mud.  I can say things to you, things that would sound silly or stupid to anyone else, and you understand and appreciate them.  Like how the sky is deeper upside-down, or how the farthest, palest-blue mountains issue a call that I can’t ignore.

Your soul is one of the most beautiful I know and will ever know.

I can be my complete self around you.  You understand all the sides of me, not just engage with one or simply appreciate them all.  You know me, see all of me.  You make my heart happy.

We can be our goofy, so-easily-entertained, child-like selves around each other.  Within weeks of first meeting each other, we were dancing in the rain… or should I say thunderstorm… and today, we hung our heads over the wall by the lake and stared deep into the pool of the sky and the ripples of the new water ceiling and talked and laughed and just soaked in the beauty of God’s creation.  For a good ten minutes.  Standing up was a new experience, and I was glad to share it with you.  Who needs to get drunk to be tipsy?  Not us.

There are days where my heart just aches for you, and yours for mine, but we know, just know, deep down, in the deepest part of us that knows and hopes and dreams and loves with a deep and abiding and fiery passion–

We will always love each other.

And best of all?  We get to spend eternity worshiping the One that saved us both.  Think there’ll be climbing in the new heavens and new earth?  I sure hope so.  Regardless, I’m sure we’ll have a blast.

Love ya, sis.

Ash 🙂

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Wonder

There’s an essence that is one of the most precious in the universe.

An element that’s becoming increasingly rare.

A fleeting bit of childhood that slips through adult fingers almost without fail.

A shining bit of quicksilver undervalued and dismissed although it glints precious, almost extinct, right at your fingertips.

What is this treasure, you may ask?

Wonder.

Yes, wonder–that thing that you were born with and have somehow lost along the way.  That thing that sly time and this overrated experience called “growing up” have begun to strip from you.

And I’m telling you, no, begging you–hold on for dear life.  Yes, for your very life, reader–for life is much, much dimmer and dingier without wonder.

If you want to see what you once were, look at a child.  Really look.  Listen.  Feel.  Learn to recognize that thing that lights up their eyes when they gently cup the velvet petals of a white and yellow wildflower in their small fingers.  That thing that bubbles up in their laugh when they fly through the air on a tree swing, eyes closed, arms outstretched to embrace the breeze.  That thing that inhabits their voice when they bury their nose in the new spring grass and say, “It smells green,” or when they reach their hands up to the sky as if their fingers could graze the white, fluffy clouds and say, “They’re so soft.”

Next time you watch a child, don’t dismiss their antics as “childishness.”  Instead try to see the world through their eyes. Become like a child again.  Try to rediscover…

The story in a strain of wordless music.  The way a book can make your heart beat faster.  How a picture can take your breath away.  The excitement and eagerness and the dash of danger that floods you when you stand beneath the ocean waves.  The wildness that overtakes you when you sprint, barefoot, along the deserted shore.  The way the soaring of a hawk can lift your heart with it.  The way the feel of grass under your bare feet or the wriggle of a newly unearthed worm can make you giggle.  How a hug can be the safest place in the world.  How joy can be a whole-body experience, not just a thought.  How wonder can imbue your life with color again.

Take nothing for granted.  Seek out every little beauty, for there is beauty in everything.  Wonder is hidden in plentiful pockets and caches for the open-hearted treasure hunter, if we will only seek.  And this lifelong search just keeps on giving.

Will you become a seeker?