In the Eyes of a Child

Memories of my young childhood are for the most part quite pleasent. It wasn't until I was about ten or so when inocience seemed to be slipping away into a place that I could never return. It would be many years until I would know something so very different.

All of my life I've lived in Texas. All of it except for six beautiful charm filled months when I lived in Portland, Oregon. Those memories of rainy days and autumn foliage cast such a light of hope within me. My parents seemed to be especially content with each other and this gave me so much joy. It was there in Oregon, where I came to LOVE trees, picking my own food, making blueberry muffins in the kitchen with mom and just sitting and watching the rain fall. There was a yarn shop behind our apartments and I remember looking though that window being transfixed by their creations. Who would of thought that I would still be enjoying yarn thirty-one years later?

My father was in construction at the time and we moved up there because there was a good job for he and a friend of his. So my mom,dad, myself and this other family moved at the same time.

It was in the fall of 1976 and I was going to school for the very first time. I loved my teacher, my school and my striped cat, Patches. I remember that I taught her to roll over when I rolled over. It was a miracle in the eyes of this six year old!

When I reflect on that very special time in my life, I've sometimes wondered why I remember it with such color and vibrant emotions. It's almost as though I can smell the rain and feel the soft orange scratch n' sniff sweatshirt I loved so much. It was a time of great abundance in my heart. The beauty was all around me and all I had to do was have eyes to see and receive every good gift God had given so freely.

Now that I'm thirty-seven and have a past filled with shame, insecurity, loss and hopelessness, I compare in earthy terms what wonderful healing waters from The Holy Spirit have meant to me when dark voices would try to convince me that it is my flesh that matters rather than all of the goodness that is REALLY real in this world. With God's abundant grace I will never again choose to live in my pain, instead I want grow and flourish in HIS light and enjoy all that He's created for His glory!