Spiritual Insights I've Learned from Children

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the wisdom of children and how it relates to the spiritual life. 

I was at a local shelter volunteering one evening and I was the only volunteer with 20+ children. Needless to say, it was pretty overwhelming and the kids were making a disaster of the toys. Pretty much everything landed on the floor! 

In the midst of this chaos, wondering how I was going to manage and clean up all of this, three sweet little girls drew me pictures with my name on them and hearts next to my name. Throughout the night they would smile at me in love and piled up pictures with my name and hearts -- without any prompting. Then they gave me little hugs and helped me clean up.

Their love was lavish and innocent, and focused on my goodness. It reminded me of the Father's love and my own call to love. 

Most of the time when I interact with these children, I find that they are so resilient. They are living in this shelter with no pillows on their beds and their parents or circumstances in large part have inflicted this suffering on them. But their smiles are infectious. They have joy despite their circumstances. They often just want to play and enjoy our moments of playfulness. And they aren't afraid to be dependent -- to need the attention, love, and companionship of me -- and to ask for it. 

Their imaginations are beautiful! They come to life in their play. I remember one night playing with them, I said "Let's draw ice cream cones," and the whole table said, "Let's get ice cream" as they drew their cones. It's like they were actually getting ice cream as they drew and colored -- and experienced the happiness of doing so in their imaginations.

And their hope. They are always speaking of hope -- that they will return to their homes.

Children hold these mysteries of lavish love, dependence, trust, hope, and imagination -- and I think all of these are so important to a vibrant spiritual life. Lavishly loving God and our neighbor, depending on and trusting the Father to give us everything we need, looking forward in hope, being joyful in suffering and all circumstances, and using our imagination to pray and delve deeper into the mysteries of our faith and God so that we experience Him all the powerfully with our senses and deep in our hearts.

If we are too stuck on being adult-like and mature in our faith, we will miss these critical childlike pieces, and we will not experience a faith that is true alive, pure and innocent. 

Let us become like little children. Imaginative, lavish in our love, dependent on the Father, joyful in our circumstances, hopeful, and always ready to enjoy God's gifts in the moment. We have much to learn from these little ones!