Wonder

I have a friend. She has embraced the embodiment of wonder as an attribute. She has retained her ability to cry over pain and enter into empathy. She has her cares but she is careless. She knows the world, but she maintains bliss.

I live in a world where wonder is rare and is considered ignorant, naïve, and unrealistic. I live in a world where wonder is frowned upon, looked down upon, and thrown out to the corner to shiver through the night. I live in a world where wonder is so long forgotten, when we encounter wonder once again, we shrivel back in disgust, misunderstanding, and judgment.

I live in a world that tells me and my friend we are too sensitive. I live in a world that mocks us when we break into tears over something that seems frivolous or mundane. I live in a world that has hardened me but seems to have untouched my growing-ever-softer sister.

I used to cry over heartbreak not my own. I used to find delight in the little things. I used to express my emotions externally better than I do now.

My friend has somehow kept delicacy and gentleness and softness about her—this is what I long for. She sees the world through a grown-up child’s eyes. She is not blind to reality or hardship, but she holds an enduring hope for better things ahead and isn’t afraid to seek possibility and opportunity.

When we, the hardened members of this green and blue community, come across something so blissfully sweet, we often respond with hate. We respond to undying love and grace with hate and I don’t understand.

Maybe it’s because we’ve allowed the green-eyed monster to take up residence in our cold-heart halls and we’ve let thorny vines cover our walls and when we come to a thriving garden, we desire the bloom we’ve lost.

Perhaps we cannot handle because we are envious of what another possesses that we once had in our grasp. We have forgotten how to plant and to prune, how to water and how to lay in the sun. We have forgotten what it means to really be alive. We have forgotten how to breathe deeply and stretch toward the sun. We have forgotten what it means to let go and let be. We have forgotten so many crucial things.

When we see this garden growing, we want to trample over the flowers because we don’t understand how such beauty can exist in the world we see. We think their glass-lenses are rose colored, but neglect to see the reality of childlike optimism and wonder. We fall into the trap thinking we will never (again) be like our friend. So we pretend.

This friend of mine is real. This friend of mine is not fictional. This friend of mine understands grace and hope and joy and love in a way I wish I could. I am constantly learning from her sweet spirit and hunger to serve the Lord in all she does. The joy and love of Christ is evident in her. She is still learning, growing, processing, and cultivating her garden, but she has many beautiful blooms that this harsh world cannot understand and sometimes I even can’t. But I want to endeavor to begin seeing beauty in the small and ordinary again. I want to learn to hope against all hopes, dream to the point of touching the sky, and live my days out in the joy that comes from trusting in Christ. I want to wonder again with the curiosity and acceptance of a child. I want to be so willing to trust Jesus as my savior and friend that I cannot contain the joy and wonder and hope and love he pours into me. I want to seek the face of Jesus in awe—I want to reside in his beautiful light.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision”—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

Ephesians 2 (NIV)