Little Ones to Him Belong

Recently Chris Tomlin came out with a song called Jesus Loves Me.  Instantly the song became something that I felt I needed to learn.  It wasn’t that I fell in love with it, I just felt sort of pulled to learn it.

So I began putting all my time into it.

 I learned it on the piano and found a key that I could sing it in.  I practiced it over and over again.  Then, on one spring day as I played it on the piano I did something different.   Instead of singing the words I spoke them.  As I spoke them

they resonated with my soul and

I began to weep.

I remember learning the children’s song “Jesus Loves Me” when I was very little.  It was under slightly disturbing circumstances so I will spare you the details but I remember little me….about 4 years old or so….little me marveled at the words “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong they are weak but He is strong.”  I didn’t really know who this guy Jesus was but I loved the thought that He loved me.  I knew I was little and since the song said little ones to Him belong I didn’t want to get bigger.  I wanted to belong to someone who loved me.  I have often thought on this time in my life and the beauty of Jesus’ quiet presence in it~~

 I did get big too.  As all children do, I grew up.  I think somehow the belief that once I got big I wouldn’t be acceptable to Him anymore stuck deep.  Deeper than I could ever begin to realize.  Until recently.  I wrote on the realization of sibling hurt and how I have attached that to Jesus in my last blog.

It seems a helpless thing that I got big.

How could I not?

Tomlin’s song Jesus Loves Me became a grown up version of that song as I spoke it on that spring day.  In the midst of tears and missed piano keys it hit me.  John the Baptist once said “He must increase, I must decrease.”  Little in body wasn’t what that children’s song was necessarily referring to.

Jesus said in Matthew 18:3 “Except ye be converted and become as little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”  

Little children know they are little, just as I once did.  Even though my body grew up, that didn’t mean the rest of me needed to get bigger.

It happens though.

We get bigger and we make the mistake of thinking we are something big.

In the light and presence of Jesus Christ, we are all quite small.  

This is such good news to me.

I am little.

I do belong to Him.

He loves me.

SDG

~tj