Last
night I was watching my daughter sleeping in her bed with her favorite toy by
her side and her baby blanket around her. I couldn’t stop my self from thinking
– she is so sweet, so little and so innocent.
In her little world right now everything is
perfect. She has a beautiful bed to sleep in, fun toys to play with, food to
eat every day. Most importantly she has her mommy and daddy to look after her,
to love her and to care for her and to teach her about everything in the world.
Right now, in her little world there are no
bad things, there is no evil, there are no enemies. All of those scary things will
come later, but right now her little world is perfect.
Every morning as I look upon the
morning sun shining on her beautiful hair- I cannot stop a feeling of worry and
concern overcoming me. I can only guess that this is how every parent feels. I sit
in front of her little bed and think about the day when I will have to tell her
that the big world outside her room is not perfect!
I dredge the time when I will
have to tell her that in this world sometimes people are really not nice to each
other – Some of them are even mean. I dredge when I have to tell her even
really good people sometimes may get sick and die. That in the big world people
sometimes get so upset with each other that they start fighting and war happens
and innocent people are killed.
So, I silently sit here in her
room and I worry about how I am going to tell her all of this. Then this is
when I pray. I pray to God to give me enough strength to take care of her and
enough wisdom to be able to teach her – to teach her that even though the world
is not perfect and none of us are perfect people – we should still try.
We should still try to be good, try
to be nice and try to be kind to each other. We should try to love one another.
Jesus was asking us to do something unexpected – to meet anger with love,
to meet disappointment with hope, to hold back when we want to lash out,
to ask God to help us do none just the right thing, but the “better” thing. We are to look to him to show us how to love
one another. How not to fight “like cats and dogs,” but instead to find out how
we can become exceptional people that get along well with everyone even our
enemies.
I hope and pray that as our little girl
grows up she will continue be as sweet as she is right now when she is so peacefully
sleeping in her little bed. I hope and pray that as she gets older she will be
able to remember those things that Jesus was teaching us.
