Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Recapturing the WOW!

Sometimes I just stumble across stuff that I really don't have to expand upon much. This is taken from an article written by Marlo Schalesky which was published in the March 13 edition of Power For Living, a weekly pamphlet we distribute to all the families at our church. Not much ever strikes me in Power For Living. But this did. The author talks about a special time between mother and daughter -- reading at bedtime.

"Tell me about Jesus on the cross."
"Ahhhh," I murmured as I turned from the dresser and tucked the blankets around Bethany's chin." "Jesus on the cross."
"Please, Mommy."
"I smiled down at her. Then, I reached over, dimmed the light, and began. I told her about how the soldiers hit Jesus, and hurt Him, and spat on Him, and pushed an awful crown of thorns on His head. I told her about how they made Him carry His own cross up to the hill call Golgotha, and how they then laid Him on the cross and spread out His arms, and nailed Him there.
"Did it hurt very much?" she asked, just as she always did whenever I got to this place in the story.
I brushed the hair back from her forehead with my fingertips, "Very much."
"They not supposed to do that." She frowned.
"But they did."
"And then what happened?"
My voice grew quiet. "They lifted the cross high in the air, and the sky turned black."
"Oooo," she breathed.
"Then, Jesus died, and the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."
"That's sad, Mommy." She clutched her sea otter toy even tighter.
I nodded, then told her about how they took Jesus down from the cross and put Him in the tomb for one day. . . two days. . . three days.
She waved her fingers in the air and counted the days with me.
"Then. . .," I said and then paused.
Bethany caught her breath.
"The ground shook," I rattled her headboard. "The stone rolled away, and. . . " I stopped.
As always, Bethany finished the story in her loudest voice. "Him not die anymore! Him risen!"
We laughed together as I hugged her and whispered in her ear, "And that is the most wonderful, incredible, amazing, important thing that has ever happened in the whole wide world from the beginning of time until now."
Her eyes grew wide. She snuggled deeper into her blankets, and said the one word that I'll never forget. Wow!
Wow! And somehow that simple word stuck in my heart and I saw the story of Jesus through a little girl's eyes -- it's wonder, mystery, and beauty. And in that moment, God rekindled in me the wow of the Gospel. Suddenly, it again was new, amazing, and wonderful. How had I forgotten the awe? How had it become "old news?"
I laid back on the bed next to her and looked at the ceiling. "Wow," I whispered, "Wow, wow, wow."

Does it still make you say, "Wow?"

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