In Whatever We Do

My oldest daughter and her family traveled from Cleveland to visit us this past week.  It was a jumble of great fun and the joy of just being together.

One chilly afternoon when there was the bustle of activity in the kitchen, I noticed my two year old granddaughter in an adjacent room, playing on my mother’s old piano.  I tiptoed out of the kitchen behind her to see what she was doing.  She was not banging away on the piano keys, as you would expect a toddler to do, but carefully plunking each one as if following a sheet of music.  She had an old hymnal opened before her, and she occasionally stood up on the piano bench and turned its pages.  And in her sweet little voice, she sang Joy to the World, over and over again.  Her passion was of one unaware of the concept of performance, and deep in the purity of one unencumbered by the limitations of others.  She sang with amazing joy.

I stood there silent behind her, afraid of disrupting this precious moment of a little one worshiping God in her own profound way and giving Him glory.  She was singing from the bottom of her heart, enunciating every syllable with great feeling.  And I could feel His delight in the room.

But Jesus said,

“Let the children come to Me,

and do not hinder them,

for to such belongs the kingdom

of heaven.”

            Matthew 19.14