The Ponderings of a Four Year Old

The question I posted last time was this: “How does a child experience God?”  I said that I’d start by telling you about my first remembered awareness at age 4.  Relax and consider my story.

We lived in a lovely, snug, Cape Cod style house when I was little.  My mother had a beauty shop in our home, “Yvonne’s Beauty Shop.”  My parents’ bedroom was adjacent to the beauty shop, and as a little one, I would come and go, enjoying all the ladies who were Mom’s clients.  My sister and I were sweet entertainment for them, bringing to them many smiles and laughs.

One day when I was four years old, I was resting on my parents’ bed while Mom was working. It was quiet and I was alone. Looking at the ceiling, I was unaware of it, because I was thinking.  This may be my youngest memory, and it is abstract in nature. 

I pondered and pondered. I knew I was 4 years old.  I was told this. I told others this.  Rolling around on the bed, I stopped, stared up at the ceiling, and wondered.  “If I am four years old, then before four years ago, I was not.  What was it like to not be?”  I tried to think, imagine, and feel what it was like to not exist.  I sensed that other people and things were older than I, so they were here, but I was not.  What would that mean?

At four, I had a limited vocabulary and understanding, but I was trying to put this concept together.  This was a spiritual experience.  Why do I say this is spiritual when I didn’t mention Jesus or God?  We must remember that children are created in the image of God with an inner God-shaped arena that only God can enter and fill.  While we are born with a sin nature because of The Fall, from infancy we are still God’s image bearers.  Within is a yearning, a wonder and awe.  When a baby studies her hand and turns it or peers deeply into her mother’s eyes, there is wonder.  I think this is the undeveloped, “cellular level” core of the child’s spirit and soul revealing itself.

My experience shows that I knew on a primal level that I was finite and that maybe something “other” was infinite.  This was God’s grace and Spirit working within me to begin to woo me to Himself – to romance my young heart.  Christian vocabulary and concepts must be introduced to children, but children are receptive because God has designed them to receive.  Let us worship the Lord and wonder at His mighty handiwork in creating us, His masterpieces, in His very image – an image that blossoms from infancy.

How does my story encourage you to look for God’s presence in your life – from pre-salvation days to this present day? God is romancing your heart – knocking on your door wanting to enter the home of your heart to live and commune with you.  No greater honor, wealth, and opportunity.

Karen