Kids Get It

This is my daughter’s typical personality. She’s the free spirit...the clown...the spit-fire who tells it like it is. It was a typical night with a typical bath...the kind where she makes a Santa beard of the bubbles and splashed entirely too much water on the floor.

...a couple of hours later she asked...as she was about to fall asleep in my lap just like every night...”Mommy, will we be old when the days are over?”

I asked her what she meant.  I mean...what a jarring question from a 4 year old. Surely she didn’t mean what I thought.

With tears in her eyes she clarified the best she could though the intermittent tearful gasps...“When there are no more days...will we be old?”

Why is my 4 year old contemplating Armageddon?  Where is this coming from?  Why would she ask this?????

I did MY best to comfort her...and I made it worse. Dave tried too. No bueno.

I was out of answers...and she wasn’t out of tears.

Then I asked her...”Do you think we should pray to Jesus?”

Did I really say that out loud?   I’m the worst pray-er. You’ll never see me volunteer to even Pray for dinner!  I’m the last example you’d select for someone to share a prayer.

But it was the only agreeable solution I’d suggested in what seemed like hours.

She closed her eyes.

I prayed out loud...for peace in her heart and for Jesus to take away her worry.

It was most certainly a simple prayer.  Like I said...I don’t have the gift of praying pretty.
One of my most common “prayers” goes exactly like this:  “Dear God...Seriously????”

I heard her deep sigh, felt her relax, and she drifted off to sleep in my arms.  As though not a tear had been shed.  Just a peaceful, sleep you’d expect from a little girl... the kind who was not discussing the end of time just moments before.

Her tears now shifted to me.
God...what kind of point are you trying to prove over here?!?!  What message are you trying to deliver here???

Jesus, himself made no secret of His bias for the faith of a child.

From seemingly nowhere, a burden, much too cumbersome for the heart of a 4 year old (or any of us for that matter), became overwhelming.

The burden surpassed logic.
And much like the rest of us lost in our fear, Luci could not process the reasoning explained.

She so readily accepted turning to Jesus... and I’d like to say I do that too.

But tonight I saw what “childlike faith” actually means...

Lucibelle Sha didn’t turn to Jesus as a last resort.

She eagerly accepted my offer to pray and vehemently denied all other ideas.

More so...

Luci turned to Jesus with ABSOLUTE faith...with no doubt in her mind that He would most certainly calm her fears.
And He did.

There was nothing in her that thought that He would fall short... that she would need to perform some other act to be more deserving... or that she was undeserving.

Nope... she gave her fear to Him, and she walked away from it with absolute peace and confidence.

I can’t remember the last time I had that kind of faith. The kind when I didn’t have a question or care in the mix...

I guess God does though...He remembers. He remembers the eager innocence and the relationship that comes with the child-like faith He wants so desperately for all of us.

He misses that...He misses it so much that He would use my daughter to snap my heart to attention and draw me closer to Him as she peacefully sleeps.

“Luci,” I tried to explain, “we will have ALL the days together...even after the days are over.”   And that, I very much believe.

The Beginning of Luci's List

This was a Facebook post from back in July after Lucibelle's surgery. 

I'm sitting here listening to the pump that's feeding my baby and the buzzes and beeps of the monitors in our room and the rooms surrounding, thinking of all of the amazing people in our lives and people we've never even met who have taken time out of their days to pray for us, pray with us, sent gift cards, posted sweet messages on Facebook, sent encouragement via text, even came to sit with us and provide support/encouragement and much needed distraction during the surgery itself bc they've been there, done that.  You all have touched my heart to the core. You don't know what it's like until you watch your own baby struggle, and then I think it changes you. 

Lucibelle has no idea yet, but it's going to be so neat to share with her how loved she has been by so many at such an early age. I'm going to take screen shots of all of your love and prayers and write down your names. I've never been good at keeping a baby book...in fact I don't think I even have one for her #mommyfail .  But now I'll have to get one, because the memory that y'all have created for her is worthy of revisiting daily. 

Something else I don't have and have never created or kept...a for real, actual prayer list. Sure, I pause and pray when I see your requests on Facebook. I also tell my husband and parents to be sure to pray...but I've never kept a list. 

But like I said, experiences like this...like how we'd watch our baby turn purple and search for air with her mouth, arms flailing, eyes big as saucers and fixed on us for reassurance...like how we had to tell her "you're okay" as we shoved a tube up her nose (I would be so mad if someone told me I was okay while they were doing that to me) and down her throat...like how we saw her get poked and prodded with no understanding of what was happening...like how I had to hand my baby to a total stranger wearing scrubs and walk away as they took her to cut and staple and sew...like how I realized that we could have it so much worse as we sat listening to the hysterical wails of a young mom and dad as their baby girl took her last breath in PICU...like how I still cannot wrap my head around the kindness of other parents whose babies have endured far more than my Lucibelle, and yet they have come to us to show us love and peace and gentleness and not dismissed any of our fears even though their children have far greater battles to fight... 

These experiences change you. 

So I want to make a prayer list. A real one. And I want to call it Luci's List. My baby girl will known the power of prayer and what it means to pay it forward. She will probably be hard headed and outspoken (idk why I think that 😜), but you have started her out with an abundance of love and infused her with a spirit of peace and giving, already. 

So will you please help me start my list...Luci's List?  Please pm me or text me what your prayer needs are so that we can write these down and give them to God.

A few years from now when my baby looks at her scars from the surgical incision and from where the g-tube once was and she asks where they came from, we will tell her that these are her reminders of the many many beautiful and loving people who loved her before she knew them.