A Child’s Wisdom

My Daughter is wise beyond her years, I think.

Or perhaps she is particularly insightful, intuitive.  Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

I am often amazed at how she is able to put into words that which most adults would not be able.

On the way home from school yesterday afternoon, we drove past the office building of a dear friend who recently passed away.  As we sat at the traffic light, we both sort of looked in the general direction of Our Friend’s office window.

“There’s Our Friend’s office, Zilla,” I said.  Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it…

“Yes, Mom.”  Her voice was hushed.  She understands what happened as well as a child can, I suppose.  Explaining Our Friend’s absence to her was difficult…uncharted territory.  But it was necessary; Zilla needed to know that this person did not just disappear from her life.  There was a reason.

I asked, “Do you miss Our Friend?”

“No, Mom.  I don’t.”

“Really?  I do.  I miss Our Friend a lot.”

She said nothing.

“Why don’t you miss Our Friend, Zilla?”

“Because… Heaven is in my heart.”

In that instant I realized that my very small, very young child must have decided that what she knows about Heaven and God and how He lives in our hearts is somehow connected to the idea that those we love who are no longer with us are in Heaven.  It made perfect sense, really.  God is in Heaven; God also lives in our Hearts.  If Our Friend is in Heaven with God and God is also in our hearts…well then Heaven certainly is in our hearts.  She does not feel a need to miss Our Friend.

Why hadn’t I ever thought of it that way?

My daughter is so wise.

Pain is real.  Whether caused by death, divorce, job loss, or physical ill, pain is real.  Whether emotional or physical, pain is tangible.  It lives and breathes just as we do.  Some days it consumes us; others not.  For a time, pain may define us completely.  Later, it may be just one small part of who we are, a tiny piece of the whole.  But whether it is backache or heartache, pain hurts.

But like anything else, if we are to grow and become something greater than we are today, we must heal.  We must first accept the pain, acknowledge it.  And then we have to fight through it with tears and gritted teeth.  We have to wrestle with it and beat it back again and again before we feel its presence wane.  There will be moments of brightness in the midst of the suffering; there will also be moments of seemingly endless dark.  Pain makes us human and being human is, well, a pain-riddled process sometimes.

But as I have reminded myself before, there is no Resurrection without the Cross.  Darkness is temporary and Morning does come.

And Heaven most certainly is in our hearts.