A Child’s Prayer Revisited

by Elouise

Near to me,
not far away,
lies a world
where we can be
all that we
were meant to be.
Won’t you come
and go with me?

I wrote this prayer over two years ago. It gave voice to the little girl in me who wanted nothing more than to find a new beginning. To be all that I was meant to be.

I’m still that little girl. Changed on the inside and the outside, yet still Elouise.

And then there’s the world in which we live and die. Also changed, it seems, into an arena of avalanching disasters. Some beyond our control; others the consequences of our internal choices, overt actions, apathy or fear.

And so I hear this prayer differently today. It’s more pointed and demanding, though not in contradiction to my prayer back then. In fact, I’d say its truth is clear to me now in a way it wasn’t in February 2015.

It’s never a coincidence when the desires of our hearts are also the desires of our Creator’s heart. And so this little prayer isn’t really mine. I hear it today as our Creator’s prayer to us, offered and summed up in the earthly life and work of Jesus.

I imagine Jesus inviting all children everywhere to come close to him. It doesn’t matter how young or old we are. What matters is our willingness to stay close to Jesus.

Not our sweetness and light images of Jesus, but Jesus who makes his way through the pages of the Gospels. On his way to a world not far away. Engaged in one interruptive teaching and activity after another. Some verbal, some enacted and some lethal.

Yes, it’s costly. Jesus never promises it will be all sweetness and light. He does, however, promise to stand by us through thick and thin. Are we up to it?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 September 2017
Daily Prompt: Coincidence