Childlikeness.
Love is given as a gift from on high, a gift descending with the gentleness of dew. But this gift must be accepted with the un-self-consciousness, unpretentiousness, unencumbered joy of children - without guile, without calculation or negotiation. With utter amazement and untarnished wonder.

We are born with this openness, this sense of wonder. But the enemy knows that sin (first others' sins, and then our own) dull our sensitivity to this gift, this light. We slowly turn away from our true selves, restrain our natural wonder and awe, learn to weigh our giving and receiving, build walls around our inmost selves. It isn't long before most of us refuse to dance, hesitate to sing, dislike surprises. Sometimes we are so wounded that we hardly recognize ourselves any longer.

So many of us are broken, wounded, needy, unable to enjoy the NOW until the past is somehow addressed. We hurt one another in ways that can be difficult to undo. Sin disrupts the normal development of the human being - physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. If this growth is arrested or distorted, we cannot fully integrate all the many dynamisms within us and we are not whole or free - we are dis-integrated. We may become stuck in unhealthy patterns of behavior, emotionally or spiritually immature on many levels, or grasping in all the wrong directions for something to fill a real need that was never met (often a need for unconditional love, security, affirmation). Our past keeps rising to the surface to remind us that something is missing, something has not been adequately addressed, something has wounded us and the wound is festering.

And we may get caught in an ever-increasing tangle of negative behaviors and attitudes, layering webs of guilt, shame, anger and resentment on top of the wounds and making the "original sin" which initiated our separation from ourselves even more difficult to find. For some, it takes years of professional help to determine the cause of the destructive (or simply limiting) behaviors and attitudes. We live in knots.

But Christ came to unravel all our knots, illumine our darkness, free us from our bondage to sin. He came (indeed, He is always coming) to restore our innocence, our status as sons and daughters.

In Him, we can be children again, enjoying a spiritual childhood in which we are not afraid to lift up our hands and receive a gift, in which we trust completely that the Father will provide every good thing, in which we know that we are loved and protected. A secure childhood that does not doubt unconditional love, does not doubt that a Father will keep His promises, does not fear. In Him, we are free to be what we are, confident that we are on a secure path.

To find ourselves, know ourselves, be ourselves in any situation - this kind of sincerity and transparency is rare, which is why it is so disarming and so attractive. How seldom we look into the face of an adult and are surprised to find the open and innocent eyes of a child! Yet in these eyes, we see God.