Advent Challenge: Child

CHILD

Day 12

What I love about my child is his ability to fully express his emotions.

When he’s happy, giggles and laughter bubbles over uncontrollably. When he’s sad, tears flow unhindered. When he’s mad, his lip curls and his eyebrows furrow.

I always know where I stand with my child. There is no shame or nuance. He can show me what he’s feeling at any point - fully.

As we grow up we learn to control these emotions, we tamp them down and make them appropriate in our settings. But I think we go to an extreme in our growing up.

We don’t just control them, we cut them off completely and bury them into our souls and psyches. And as we strangle our emotions, our ability to connect with other humans is dampered.

“What do you think she meant by that?” “What is with him?”

We whisper echoes of doubt in our relationships, we’ve hidden our raw souls entirely. We are lonely.

What if we could better tap into the child inside of our souls? To hear the full-blown emotion our inner child would like to express and examine it before we silence it? Then learn to care for the child in our hearts as well as we care for the children of our flesh by expressing the needs of that inner child a little more. We aren’t controlled by our childish whims, but instead nurture our needs with direction and care the way we do the small children around us.

If we cared for our souls as much as we cared for our children, then I think we might see more of that child-like faith the Kingdom of Heaven longs for.