He’s a strange boy.

Five-year’s tall and lumbers like an ox. When he drew his first breath, his neck rolls wobbled and his daddy laughed, “ Maybe he’ll be a lineman.”

But, no.

He’s the kid picking dandelions in the outfield or shoving his torso through a flimsy lawn chair and flapping his arms like a bird to make little girls laugh. He’s the boy sketching birds and butterflies or shading hearts with colored pencils and unrolling six rolls of scotch tape to seal a letter, “I made just for you, mom!”

He’s the kid standing in the gym locker room studying the face of the large man with brown sun spots dappling his cheeks, “like lakes on a map” till the man looks up and says uncomfortable, “Hey! Stop staring, kid!”

He’s the kid seeing faces in splattered paintings and humming made-up songs about the God who creates, or the kid asking persistent about the Costco clerk or librarian, “Does she know God? Does she?”

Our boy sees color and humor—heaven—in a black-n-white world of functional formulas. I see spilled milk cascading across the kitchen table. He sees Gandalf’s beard growing tentacles and laughs till he cries.

Our boy listens to older brothers’ dinner-time ponderings about the reality of death, how they don’t want to die, and he asks soft,

“But don’t you want to see God? He’s so beautiful!”

Silence.

The strange beauty of child-like faith mutes adults with too many words about nothing.

Don’t you want to see God? He’s so beautiful!

 Childlike faith lives fearless because it believes the promise of Beauty awaits those who Fear Only Him.

Oh, to have the eyes of this boy who reminds me daily of the ethereal realities of God that envelope every moment!

I’ve become dull, mute to the realities of heaven, superfluous with doings rather than being.

So this morning I’m pausing and praying for eyes like a child, to see beyond spilled milk to the heavenly reality of God at work, to know peace in the midst of days that never go as planned.

To sing with my strangely beautiful boy–

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Becca B.

Reflection Questions

How do the creative, out-of-the-box (strangely beautiful!) souls in your life point you to the realities of God? Do you stop and ponder these things or simply write off these souls as “weird”? Can you pray with me and ask God to open your eyes to his work in and around you?