I woke up this morning and lay in bed thinking.
I thought about a verse, when I was a child I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, but when I grew up I put away childish things. then I thought of another verse, unless you become like little children, the thought being that you should be like a child.
I contemplated my own childhood, carefree. I climbed trees and swung from them on ropes. I traveled the paths in the woods by the streams picking flowers. I caught lightning bugs in jars and watched them light up under my bedcovers, then released them into the dark night. My play partners and I made our own home in the woods with an old table and chairs kindly donated by my mother.
I dreamed--- I lay on my grandmother's lawn looking up at the blue sky with big puffy white clouds. My dream was about the world and everybody who lived in the world. In my mind everybody loved one another. They held hands, the love was palpable, I felt it with my whole childish heart. I had no concept of how big the world was, I was a child.
Then I thought about the parents who will be without their children this Christmas because of the act of one person. We cannot comprehend why, but we hold compassion because of love. Then I thought of another verse, there are treasures in darkness. What are these treasures and where are they hidden? They are hidden in the heroism of a terrified teacher who hid her children to protect them. They are hidden in the outpouring of love and prayers that are sent to comfort those in grief. They are hidden in every heart where love abides.
