Note from Juan Carlos (Pastor Los): I’ve invited several writers from our church to contribute to this site so they can share what the Lord has placed on their hearts. The goal is to encourage those in need and to prompt thoughtful reflection. We’ve known Jen and her family for many years, and we’re thankful for her contribution here at Real Talk Pastor.

Several years ago I lay in my toddler’s little bed while we waited for morning. He talked while I closed my eyes hoping for a moment or two more of sleep. Soon the light of the sun was glowing above the horizon.

“The stars are going home to be with Jesus,” my son said quite matter of factly. 

My heart felt like it could burst. I opened my eyes, smiled, and said, “I love that. He names each one and calls them home after they’ve worked the whole night.”

What an illustration of Jesus’ power and care for a child to think of! I had a hard time finding the words to explain it then, but somehow I felt this truth was the greater one for my child to embrace than the scientific one he would learn later about stars and light. 

Recently, I’ve been reading (well, actually very slowly listening to) Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. In it he says:

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

The wonder and imagination that children often have are a beautiful example of this “poet” perspective. It’s something I want to cultivate more in myself, first, because God’s already used story and wonder to calm my resistance to his love. Second, because many things about God simply cannot be understood with logic or reason (Job 42:3). 

“I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ”Ephesians 3:17a-19 CSB

At least for me, something so otherworldly as God’s love has felt suspicious, dangerous, too good to be true, and/or just meant for other people. A love I can’t comprehend is hard to accept, much less find comfort in. God has had a way of using time and stories (lived and told) to reshape the way I think and give me fuel to wonder and hope and imagine good and holy things.  

And so I wonder: Is the abundance and comfort I feel when a brother or sister in Christ sees and cares for me a glimpse of what God’s love for me is like? Does his love for me hold even more healing warmth than a fellow believer’s eager forgiveness and offer of restoration? 

In Scripture, when did John start thinking of himself as the one whom Jesus loved? Was he always someone confident in his standing with others, or did Jesus give him assurance that was beyond what John ever knew before? What made Mary do the culturally abnormal thing and sit at Jesus feet while he spoke rather than help her sister, Martha, in the kitchen? Was this something she did before with other teachers, or was there something about Jesus that drew her near?

If God is always with me, what would he have been doing in the hard moments of my life? Did he cry with me? Shield me from pain or ease that would not be for my good? Did he laugh with joy when I turned from sin and ran to him? Did he smile when I forgave and comfort me when it hurt? Did Jesus bring the children near and say the kingdom belongs to those like them, because they so willingly believe in other-worldly wonder?

It’s possible.