Better to be a humble child than a proud parent

"Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 18:3

My child amazes me.

I say that not just as a proud mom, but as a person genuinely in awe.

During the baptism preparation class we took before she was born, the speaker told us that someday we would stop in our tracks and realize how much our children were teaching us about living a Christian life. The moment occurred multiple times over the past month, as my 3-year-old has taught me more than I could imagine about faith and fearlessness.

First was ballet. We took her to see "The Nutcracker" last Christmas, and ever since, we had been promising her this fall she would get to take ballet. Germany was not going to get in the way. I found a studio, and a friend contacted the teacher so we could try it out. The teacher speaks great English, but, of course, does most of the instruction in German. Catherine didn't care. She jumped right in with the other girls. A huge grin stayed on her face and she jumped and twirled and volunteered to go first as if she had been taking lessons for years.

Then came Kindergarten. Ballet is only once a week, so all day, every day is a different story I thought. No. Again, we walked into school, she met the teacher, changed into her house shoes and ran off with the kids. By the time I picked her up, she was giving another girl a hug and didn't want to leave. After a couple weeks, I asked if she understood the other kids: "No Mommy, but we play anyway," she said matter-of-factly. Clearly her barriers are not the same as mine.

Somewhere in her brain, she senses or believes that ballet and Kindergarten are good for her. She trusts that I'm doing the right thing for her, and she doesn't ask a lot of questions about why (for once). If she can trust me, as flawed as I am, why is it so difficult for me to trust God?

The quote from the gospel of Matthew comes in a short exchange with the disciples. Again, they are misunderstanding the Kingdom of Heaven and ask Jesus who is the greatest. And Jesus must have wanted to scream, but instead he calls to a child and holds him up as an example of humility. Children haven't learned to depend on their own understanding. Instead, they have such faith in their parents that fearlessness comes naturally.

They run and dance and sing and laugh without worrying about what other people think or how it makes them look. They plunge into unfamiliar settings because they trust in the ones who put them there.

All of our journeys are full of places where we might doubt or fear even when we know we are going in the right direction. May God grant us the grace to overcome with a big grin on our face and say yes to his plan.