Do you know how it feels when a baby says your name for the first time? Maybe that's what it feels like the first time a person calls on God, willingly recognizes Him on their own for the first time.
On my bike ride I wound out visiting some neighbors. I hadn't meant to, but they're such good friends I can never pass them up. The mother came in holding her little 1 year-11 1/2 month-old son. This baby is the darling of the relatives, the family friends, the church. He has at least a score of older siblings--or people all too ready to act so--who insanely dote on him. I'm one of them. He gets more attention than a celebrity...and so much love. No wonder he's just bursting with joy.
His smile is so precious. The significance of this is that his father is one of the most loving fathers I know. He is one loved child. And he brings joy to so many. He doesn't look like some celebrity baby or act like one. What draws people is his innocent, naive, trusting face. It's his big, dark eyes that can be so innocent one moment and so playfully mischievous the next. And that heartbreaking smile. I just think we should smile like that because of our Father in heaven. We're that loved.
Yesterday his mother held him as she walked up to me. I hadn't been playing with him or trying to elicit a word or two from him, as we often do. I hadn't even spoken to him just yet. He took one look at me, lit up, and said, "P'Anne!" It was so unmistakable in sound. And I knew he knew fully meant it, because his little face just brightened up as he said it. (The "P" is the prefix for 'older person' in Thai.) Those two syllables held diamonds. I felt warm inside for a long time after that.
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