In His Arms

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers, we appreciate your interest and your presence here with us. Joy has had a lot of social/personal interaction this week which has been rather exhausting for her, but fortunately, also this week, the New Testament portion from our read-through-the-Bible time included two accounts that have become some of Joy’s and my personal favorites, especially since the accident.

As Joy has previously written in her own posts, her permanent brain damage often leaves her feeling like a child cognitively, emotionally, and even spiritually. Joy can remember that she was in leadership positions for much of her 45 year nursing career. She knows that we both obtained Master’s Degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy and that she also was a counselor in our private practice for 20 years, splitting her time between the hospital and our clinic. Joy can remember that both positions required extensive education, high level cognitive processing, and the ability to adapt quickly to ever changing demands and circumstances.

But while Joy can remember that, at one time, she did operate with advanced knowledge and high levels of cognition, she also knows that now, a majority of that knowledge and advanced cognitive capacity are gone, lost to three brain bleeds and the resulting encephalomalacia and gliosis, medical terms for the destruction of brain tissue. So Joy’s experience of feeling like a child is far from merely a perception, it is a reality for her. There are days when that reality sobers Joy and leaves her melancholy, bur more often than not, that childlikeness reveals itself beautifully in her depth of love, compassion, and empathy for those around her.

While not minimizing this new reality for us, I am blessed everyday to see Joy exhibit many of the beautiful characteristics that children naturally model so well. Their innate sense of wonder, intense curiosity, a deep, trusting nature, playfulness, creativity, and emotional vulnerability, often forgiving quickly, and living in the moment. Considering those childlike characteristics, I better understand and appreciate why Jesus took the time to point out the immeasurable value of coming to him in childlike faith. With back to back instances referencing children in our reading from Mark this week, Joy expressed thankfulness that there can be geniune blessing in our losses while feeling safe in Jesus loving arms. In Mark we read:

He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.” Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.” Mark 9:35-37

Then in the next chapter we read:

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them. Mark 10:13-16

For Joy, these verses present a more potent reality than they probably do for the rest of us, but they really shouldn't, it is pretty clear that Jesus saw this as an essential characterstic of our coming to know and follow him. Reflecting on the importance of childlike wonder in the approach to our faith, I hope the following thoughts from Henri Nouwen can encourage us all in our approach to living securely in the arms of love, Nouwen writes:

Jesus came to open my ears to another voice that says, “I am your God, I have molded you with my own hands, and I love what I have made. I love you with a love that has no limits, because I love you as I am loved. Do not run away from me. Come back to me—not once, not twice, but always again. You are my child—I am your God—the God of mercy and compassion, the God of pardon and love, the God of tenderness and care… I love you because you are beautiful, made in my own image, an expression of my most intimate love. Do not judge yourself. Do not condemn yourself. Do not reject yourself. Let my love touch the deepest, most hidden corners of your heart and reveal to you your own beauty, a beauty that you have lost sight of, but that will become visible to you again in the light of my mercy. Come, come, let me wipe your tears, and let my mouth come close to your ear and say to you, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ ”