A Practicum in Optimism

I think God speaks to me through children. Maybe it’s because I’m willing to listen to kids without the guards and walls I put up against most peers. I think I’m just too skeptical when interacting with adults. It may sound odd, but I believe it to be true.

Two years ago, I was sitting in DFW airport (impatiently) waiting to meet a coworker for our business trip. There was a large group of people (obviously an extended family) standing in the same lounge area as me, and in that group I noticed that there was a beautiful little girl hiding behind her dad’s legs. She couldn’t have been more than two years old. The girl was dressed in a cute pink outfit, and I noticed that she had a death-grip on a tattered pink blanket. After my short observation, I became immersed in my book once again.

Within a few moments, this little girl appeared right in front of me and tapped me on the leg. So I looked up and smiled; I told her ‘hi’ and commented on how pretty she looked. Her parents walked over to apologize for their daughter’s actions, which I told them was not necessary. We chatted for a minute before they whisked their daughter back to the rest of their family. But the little girl kept coming back to me, and every time she came back she would smile and linger for a moment before leaving her worn blanket on my lap.

Finally, her mother came to me in amazement. She told me that she could never get this particular blanket away from her daughter long enough to even wash it without some sort of struggle. The mother was astonished by the fact that her daughter was willing to leave such a prized possession in the hands of a total stranger. I nodded and agreed with the mother, then returned the blanket to her for the last time. And at that point I actually had to get up and walk away; I did not want everyone around me to see that I was practically in tears at a simple realization.

It hit me that God was using a child to comfort me in a way that I could not have been comforted by anyone else at that time. In His own way He was telling me that I was worthy, that I was being given a gift that I had done nothing to earn, and that He would always comfort me in my times of need regardless of how isolated I felt at a given moment.

In the past few months, God has taken a sledgehammer to my wall of cynicism. I repeatedly am reminded of things that I have witnessed, and I am hesitantly grasping what it means to put an ounce of trust in other people. My transparency unnerves me to some degree though. And I’m even more taken aback with the reaction I get from others when I step out in faith.