Faith Like a Child's

"And calling to Him a child, He put him in the midst of them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven."          

- Matthew 18:2-4

I have come across these verses numerous times in the bible, and have even quoted these before in one of my previous posts. 

However, I had never really grasped the true meaning of the message, or rather, I had never comprehended how it applies, until today - and I learnt it from my 6-year-old son, Nathan. 

Like most other 6-year-old boys, there are times when Nathan can be such a pain. Being hyper apart, he tends to be very hard headed at most times. His therapist and doctors have been trying to figure out a diagnosis for his drooling and delay in proper speech. At first, we saw an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and thought it was Ankyloglossia (tongue tie) and he even underwent a minor surgery for that. No difference made. Then we thought mild cerebral palsy, and then the pediatrician said there is nothing wrong with him, and sent him for speech therapies. It is impossible for it to be nothing - he has been complaining to me about pain in doing certain movements, and even chewing. The speech therapist said it could be ADHD - he has pretty short attention span, giving you about 10 minutes of his focus and then he gets out of control. She shall continue monitoring him until she figures out the best therapist to send him to. Traditional specialists say it has something to do with his nerves, or his imbalanced posture. We have tried many means. Until about last year, I had always blamed myself for his condition.

So, what has my son taught me about Faith?

Just last night, my daughter, Mikaela was muttering about being scared of the dark. Nathan then comforted his sister with his limited speech, "No scared. No ghost. Jesus strong! (flashing his bicep - he shows a lot of actions to help people understand what he is saying.)"

I have been telling my kids that there are no such things as ghosts, only Holy and evil spirits, and anytime they start to be afraid, they can always turn to God and pray - Jesus is always there with them. It touched me so much to hear these from my son. Such faith and trust coming from my not-so-little boy.

Since baby, people have been calling Nathan the happy or smiling boy, always with a big grin on his face, especially when seeing someone new - though he may smile his habitual crooked or cheeky smile. I have noticed, even after we have scolded him for misbehaving, he tends to forgive and forget fast. Just this morning, he made me blow my top in the car when sending him to school, but when he got down to enter the main door, he turned and looked at me and gave me a loving and sincere smile and waved goodbye gleefully at me. That hit me, how much we can really learn from a child.

Then I realized what Jesus meant when He said what He said in Matthew Chapter 18 Verse 2 to 4.

I may not be the best mother, but I have learnt to thank God for giving me such beautiful blessings in my life. I pray that I am able to love, teach and guide my children the way Jesus would, the way He does.