See what love God has given us, that we should be called children of God 1 John 3:1

Many of us look upon the child and are disarmed. There is a freedom in her exploration, a joy in the discovery of the manifold ways in which life surrounds her. The child is undaunted in her quest to know more of life. She is generous in her love and holds little distinction between who is deserving of her attention. On occasion she will fall and scrape a knee or stretch the limits set for her by her parents. She will feel the “hurt” of these happenings but they do not grip her or hold her back from who she is as a child explorer; God’s delight. She trusts that her parents will always be there for her and that is what keeps her free.

We are God’s children and to live in this truth is our vocation. We are challenged to pull back the layers of unbridled mistrust, the weighted distinctions of what is determined as beauty, the silencing of the voice that has the courage to ask “why” and the paralyzing fear of being a disappointment because of one’s humanity. We must claim the trust we had in our beginning years. Our parent, our God, will always be there for us and that is what will keep us free; a freedom to live authentically as God’s child; to live gratefully in love.