child-like faith

     Life has been a little big here lately, and yet, God is so good!  I buried my last "grand-pa" a week and a day ago.  He was not my biological grandfather, but for all intents and purposes, he was because he was the only grandpa I have ever known to be married to my Grandma.  He loved her so very much.  They were almost disgusting how wrinkly and in love they were.  :)  I can only hope for that some day.

     It was cool because the reception after the funeral was at a church where Murmur would take me once a week for "Mother's Day Out."  I later attended youth group at this church.  Such lovely times were spent with my Maker in this place.  I used to chase lizards through that bush with the orange flowers.  We would all run around this very tire and pretend that if we fell off the alligators would eat us!  I would get those little pebbles all in my shoes!  I would often return to the sanctuary with white palms from the fine dust of those chalky little stones.  I was walking around the tire thinking how cool it was that God would bring me back to this place, especially at this time...  

     In this place, it is easy for me to see God with a child-like faith.  In this place I am so unaware of all the pain and hurt in life.  The biggest threat to me would be a scraped knee from sliding across all those tiny rocks.  How lovely it was to walk with the Lord, and revisit that faith!

     I have changed so much since those days, but God has not.  He is still the Sovereign Lord of my life.  He still desires the very best for me.  And He is still so good.  Just because life is hard and sometimes hurts, does not mean that God is not good.  As I grow, I learn different characteristics of God.  Just because I see Him as a God who permits bad things to happen (for now), does not change what I have known to be true of Him before.  He permits pain, but He is still loving and merciful.  Those orange flowers are still blooming, and He is good.