A Tale of Two Thursdays

At this point in their lives, my kids can't see very far into the future.  They essentially live one day at a time, happy to be where dad and mom are taking care of them and where playtime lasts longer than naptime!  They are profoundly content walking with us into daily experiences - empowered by our presence, comforted in our embrace, propelled forward by our encouragement, secure in our discipline, and supported by our affirmation.  Reflecting on Matthew 18, I wonder if this is part of what it means to have child-like faith.  In a spiritual sense, we too, feel these same emotions in relationship with a heavenly Father who loves us perfectly.

And so I'm brought to a tale of two Thursdays.  On Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 7:02pm in Warren, PA, our dear daughter Karina was born.  We tell her now that she is special because she made us parents.  She always smiles.  Tonight she was smiling for a much deeper and more enduring reason.  As we were reading the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Son during our bedtime Bible stories, it became clear that she was being called by God.  I asked her directly, as if the one sheep, whether she was lost or not.  She said, "Yes."  Again I asked her directly, as if the lost son waiting in the distant country, if she was waiting to go back to the Father.  She said, "Yes."

One day you will come home on the school taxi and find that dad has made tea and cookies for you.  He will come running to the broken-down blue van that smells of diesel fumes and burnt engine oil and tell you he's been waiting all day to have a special "date" with his daughter.  His sweet girl has come home at last.  There will be no consideration, in that moment, of telling him that you'd rather wait in the blue taxi for a little while longer.  No, there will be a smile of joy and a spring in the step along the walkway that leads to the front door.  For you will then recognize that you have also been waiting all day, even if you didn't realize it, to return home.

So there was no more waiting in a spiritual sense either.  Karina and I prayed together.  She didn't want to pray out loud.  But with the most appropriate posturing, a turning away from me, her earthly father, she bowed deeply, reverently, and submissively as if turning toward her heavenly Father, and repeated in her heart what I prayed audibly.  She sat up and smiled.  She had been born on a Thursday again.  Or, perhaps better said, she had been born again on a Thursday.