Children are a Blessing!

Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.
(Psalm 127:3)

Children really are a gift from the Lord and while I have not been blessed with any of my own as of yet, I have been blessed to know many children throughout my life. I have three beautiful nieces who regularly make me laugh at some of the silly things they come up with. The youngest is almost 3 years old and she has given me a name that she calls me, but no one else does. People are generally confused as to how she came up with this name, considering it sounds nothing like my actual name. When she was nearly a year old she was upstairs in her crib crying and babbling like most babies do. Well after my brother and sister-in-law didn't have much success in quieting her, I went upstairs to see if I would have any luck. When I came around the corner of the steps and entered her room, she was standing up in her crib and reaching toward me with her arms outstretched saying "Nee Nee". I went over and picked her up and she let out a little giggle. To this day, she still calls me Nee Nee. I have to admit that I don't want her to ever stop calling me Nee Nee. I have grown accustomed to hearing that name and responding to this precious little girl. She is fully aware that I like to sing and play the guitar and just about every opportunity she gets she will look at me and say, "Nee Nee, sing a song." I don't normally respond well to demands, but I can't resist taking in a deep breath and belting out the Bumble Bee song, or Jesus Loves Me. I swear I can almost hear her trying to sing with me sometimes.

There have been many times in my life that children have taught me things that no adult would ever dare to. I went on a mission trip to Peru during the summer of 2010. We were constantly surrounded by children who were really excited to see us. Sixty or more children would line up outside the doors of this one church in the desert of Trujillo, Peru waiting to be let in to learn about Jesus. They were surrounded by poverty that I had never even seen, let alone experienced before in my lifetime and yet, there was such joy on their little faces. After one of our Bible lessons, I was handed a roll of stickers to hand out to the children. I was the only one who was handed stickers. Well, immediately a swarm of children, shoeless and covered in dirt surrounded me. They were saying in their own language "for me! for me!" These children didn't want for me to forget to give them a brightly colored piece of adhesive paper. Now, there aren't very many children in the US that would react in such a way to a sticker. I was broken. God was revealing to me through these children that the lack of joy in my heart was because I was focusing on what I didn't have. I was whining over the things I wanted and had yet to get, and here are these children who have seemingly nothing and yet the countenance on their faces said they had everything because they knew Jesus Christ. Here I was, a Christian, going on a mission trip to tell people about Jesus, and these children reminded me about him. Throughout the course of our stay in Trujillo, Peru, I was reminded again and again of the many blessings I have. What I didn't have at that moment, paled in comparison to the riches I have in Jesus Christ. I find myself needing to be reminded again and again of those little children and the simple faith and joy they had. Children are precious and if we take the time to listen, we may hear the voice of God teaching us a lesson through the face of a child.