childlike.

I looked down at that old photo and felt an ache surge through my heart. Desire. It was a desire to feel the joy that is born only from the inner freedom given by God to the childlike. The joy of simplicity, dependency, complete and total surrender to the present moment and everything it has to offer. The little pink tights, black leotard, and slippers cannot contain the joy that fills her tiny body. Beams of joy pouring out each fingertip.

The Lord has been stirring my heart and pressing me to come back to this place for some time now. Like most Fathers, He keeps dreaming I will return to my childlike ways. He keeps hoping I will rediscover my joy beaming fingertips, and I can see He is not giving up until I do. In His gentle way He keeps reminding me, keeps showing me, and twirling it in front of me.

I find myself day after day in the same theme of prayer, seeking His Divine Plan for my life.

It was another Friday afternoon and I sat in line for my turn to receive reconciliation. As I finished laying down my sins I prepared my heart to receive the Lord’s words of forgiveness and penance. “Do you dance, or sing”? I felt my voice catch in my throat and with much hesitation I said, “um, yes I was a dancer”. Gently, he said, “I feel the Lord telling me you have lost your joy, and He wants you to dance again”. Before I could utter any words he gave me my penance. “Your penance is to dance”, he said so matter of factly, and he followed with the prayer of absolution. I walked away with a twist of emotions and questions coursing through my mind. And I laid them all down at His feet because, well, I needed some answers.

Firstly, what do you mean I lost my joy? But I felt like I had come so far in the way of joy. Do you not remember the desert I just walked out of? I think I’m feeling pretty joyful in comparison. Secondly, what kind of love is this? How could you be so merciful? Did you not hear my sins? How could dancing be my penance? Every time I return to You with my failures, Your mercy is given in greater abundance.

“Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” Matthew 8:8

Then I tried to dance. It was the lousiest dance I had ever seen. I felt silly. I felt childish. And He answered every single tangled up question in my heart. Somewhere amongst the growing up, the learning, the suffering, the career building, the bills, the responsibilities… I lost sight of the beauty and wonder that He planted within me to birth joy. I let the desire for wisdom, learning, and calling stand over that little girl. My Father held me up as I stood there and He told me in my heart He would teach me to dance again; He would help me rediscover my joy again. He would make me new again, and little did I know He would be taking me back to this place of little pink tights and joy beaming fingertips.

I took His promise literally and I signed up for a ballet class with a friend. I haven’t really danced in maybe three years. Just putting on the leotard and touching that cold bar was enough to send me into a world I didn’t know I had left. Joy.

I would love to tell you from these moments on I started dancing on clouds everyday as I walked in and out of the same job, and faced the world with starry eyes. But, I will tell you He didn’t give up. He hasn’t given up. Over and over again He welcomes me home with tenderness and love. Repeatedly, He shows up to reveal the next step.

Again, I found myself waiting in line to receive the gift of reconciliation. This day I was particularly tired and I felt the weight of my unworthiness like a stone pressing on my chest. I left the confessional having been given the grace of total mercy, and yet I still felt the lingering heaviness.

Friday turned to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday. I walked into the youth room to begin another night with the high schoolers. We had a guest speaker that transitioned to adoration, which I was so thankful for. One because I felt like my cup was lacking in anything to offer, and two because I needed to be seen by Him. I sometimes go into prayer and adoration with an agenda. I have things I need to pray for, to sort out. This night, though, I didn’t know. I just wanted to be seen. So I let Him look at me. I let Him look at all the places I wanted to hide and the places I didn’t understand. I just knelt there and let Him take all of me in. I closed my eyes and He set my imagination on a freight train of memories. Praise God for imagination and the gift of memories. Like a picture show memories from my childhood began to appear. I was on the playground in my new skirt being chased down the slide. Sunny and snowy vacations, moments in my grandparents’ living room, the smell and embrace of my grandfather, my favorite dinner around the table with irrupting in laughter, playing fort in the woods with my brother, splashing my little sister, throwing mud with my cousin, holding his hand for the first time.. the clothes, the noises, the voices, the warmth… it was all there. Present and as real as the Father gazing at me in that room. My memories kept going and it rested on one Christmas morning. I was about seven years old and all the kids started playing with their Christmas gifts on the driveway. I had a giant disk that was made out of a thin, shiny balloon-like material. I threw it into the sky and it landed on a nearby car that ripped the disk in half. Devastated, I ran to my room and retreated to a little prayer journal I had tucked under my bed. In the back of the prayer journal there was a place to write out your sins. I wrote down how sorry I was for ruining my brand new gift.

I started laughing at myself, how childish I was for thinking that was a real sin. Then in my heart I felt the Father say, “This is how I still see your sins”. Hot tears swelled in my eyes and I let them fall.

The road to joy doesn’t look like clouds and starry eyes. The journey to joy does look like Christmas mornings, swing sets, tea parties, and hot tears. The way to freedom and complete dependency on the Father looks like dancing. It looks like letting Him hold me up, letting Him take the lead, giving Him my little fingertips and allowing Him to send the joy throughout my whole body. By His kindness, His unrelenting mercy, and by His overwhelming capacity to love me, He is teaching me to dance again.

I met with a new spiritual director, a moment I had been praying for for many months. She let me tell my story, and sweetly asked me what I hoped to get out of our encounters. Like so many of my prayers before, I explained how desperately I wanted to discover the Father’s Divine will for my life. I wanted to uncover the beautiful work He has been crafting in my heart over the past few years, and when He reveals His plan for me I don’t want to miss it. She softly smiled and told me it seems to her the Lord is calling me to rest. I think He wants you to enJOY your life, your marriage, the place you are at right now with the people around you. I’ve been so caught up with the hunger for answers, with a desire for a clear sign of the ‘right’ path, that I keep skipping over the one He is placing at my feet. Joy.

My mom started going through old photos the other night and sent them to us. I love looking at photos. Most everything is digital now, but there is something about thumbing through boxes of glossy photos. The picture of the little girl in full arabesque, arms and toes stretched wide, has held my attention for days. I’ve been looking at it and coming back to it again. I keep feeling drawn to her, to know her. I realized I want to be her, and the Lord wants me to remember her heart.

Once more, I found my career turned over on its side with my future looking hazy. I had been there before. I knew it would happen again in my life, but I just didn’t think it would be so soon. I went to adoration with a clear agenda to sort out the broken pieces of my career. I walked in and knelt before Him and immediately heard cooing. I looked to my right and a new mother held her baby close. I asked for an action plan. What is next, Lord? Again, the baby cooed and I felt myself relax back in my chair and felt myself so small like a little baby held in my Father’s arms. My mind wandered through the last few years of my life. He showed me the hands I’ve held, the hearts He brought me to know, and He whispered there will be more. We will dream together, but rest now. I wanted to stay there forever, childlike. Not a single worry to handle on my own, there in my Father’s arms. That photo impressed in my heart, it reignited the words from the priest calling me to dance. The tendencies to love freely and play wildly in my childhood. This sweet baby in the adoration chapel, given no other task but to rest in her mother’s arms. I open to the gospel reading that day,

“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” Luke 10:21

I hear Him and I see Him calling not just me, but you too, sister. He is calling us to rest and joy from our childish, dependent hearts. Our inner child has an innate need for joy in the capacity that God desires for each of His children. He is calling me back to that little girl in all of her pink tight, black leotard, joy beaming splendor.

“But I want to find how to get to Heaven by a little way that is quite straight, quite short: a completely little way.”

“To reach perfection, I do not need to grow up. On the contrary, I need to stay little, to become more and more little.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

I will probably be recounting and unpacking this season, these moments for the rest of my life. For now, I am relishing in the graces He continues to give me and the healing my heart and body requires. I hope these moments and words speak into your heart and meet you where you are right now. His invitation to joy is for you. His quest for your heart to become childlike in His hands is for you. I don’t know if it’s pink tights, I don’t know if your own memories are painful. But I do know, deeply, that He is love and mercy at its most infinite source. He is the Divine Physician, He can and will heal You. Take His hands and let Him lead.

Pray with me…

“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” Thank You for the gift of imagination and memory. Thank You for the grace of Your sacraments, for the love You pour out into my little heart. Jesus, I desire, by Your grace to love You even with my small capacity to love. May my desire to be successful, to dream, to serve be tempered by Your call for my presence first. Here I am, Lord, and I surrender it all to You. I surrender my heart, my love, my dreams, my possibilities, my joy, my simple prayers, my simple life all to You. The One who holds me. I hear You hushing me to rest my head. I will rest on You, and I trust that when I am ready You will reveal the possibilities You have for me, the desires You have for my life, when I remain childlike. I love you, Dad. I will rest here, in the manger of You arms. Amen.

x courtney.