Judah's Prayer

Judah's first day of school, August 2015

Judah is 5 years old. He is a young child. And he prays well.

As he prayed thanking Jesus for dinner that evening, he added, and please help the doctors in Philadelphia find out what is wrong with Ezra. Amen.

I smiled knowingly; my 60-something wisdom smug. I patted him on the head with pretend affirmation. After all, we already know what is wrong with Ezra. And more than that, we already know what the cure looks like. (Of course those words were never voiced.)

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,,

he game the right to become children of God,"

Judah's prayer from a few weeks previous and these familiar words from I Corinthians 13:11 and John 1:12, came back to haunt me that Saturday morning as I sat in front of the Ronald McDonald House pondering the story God had our family in the midst of.

Yes we did know what was "wrong" with Ezra - he had Hyperinsulinism. But what we thought was the "cure" - surgery on his pancreas - was not the cure. Us adults didn't get it!

I was a 19 year old adult when my religion morphed into a relationship and I became a child of God.  

And I worked on giving up those childish ways. I looked around me and observed adult ways. 

Note to self ... do this, don't do this. Be an adult.

That Saturday morning I drove a stake in the ground. I gave up some of my knowing adult ways. Many years I believed giving up childish ways was a good thing. And sometimes it is. But not always.

Judah's child-like trust as he prayed that prayer is childishness that needs a home in my life too! Trust, the default of a child is a quality God desires for this adult-child too. I'm praying Judah and our other GRANDS will never give up their child-like trust.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding,"

Proverbs 3:5

My husband says, "God gives us permission to not understand". God, would you please help me to lean into trusting more than my desire to understand. Amen.