Faith & Life

Sweet Little Curly-Haired God

A two-year-old in my bed, sandals on the wrong feet,
and everything I never thought about the hidden years of Jesus.

Personal Reflection  ·  Advent

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My two-year-old has started coming into our bed at night.

Both my husband and I are pretty good sleepers, so we do not always notice when this happens. We just end up finding a big hairy head snuggled under our noses. She is a snuggler.

A lot of the time when this happens, I just get annoyed. Although it is sweet now, we have a twelve-year-old who did this almost his entire life and is just now starting to sleep in his own bed all night. So I can see exactly where this is heading, and it is not sweet.

My two-year-old is also going through a phase where she is desperately trying to be independent and make her own choices. She wants to pour her own glass of milk, buckle herself into her car seat, get her own clothes on. Waiting for her to do these things is sometimes tortuous for me, because it takes so much longer than if I just do it for her. But I know it is important. When I can spare the time, I try to be gentle and patient and let her do it herself.

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Then one day, I was meditating on those years of Jesus that we know almost nothing about. The hidden years. The quiet years. And I started to wonder.

Did Jesus climb into bed with Mary and Joseph? I mean, did children even have their own beds back then? There is a good chance he was simply always sleeping between them.

I started to imagine what that must have been like for Mary. To have Jesus snuggling her in the night. Sweet little curly-haired God, rubbing noses with her in the dark. I could not think of anything more delightful. And it was not hard to imagine, because I had a sweet little curly-haired child snuggled against me at that very moment.

Which took me to a whole other level.

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• I wonder if sweet little Jesus wanted to pour his own glass of milk?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus tried to climb onto his donkey all by himself?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus insisted on putting his own sandals on his own feet, on the wrong feet?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus stalled going to bed at night by telling his mother he loved her five million times?

Seeing my crazy, demanding, desperately independent two-year-old in light of the child Jesus has taken this whole Advent season to a completely new level for me.

Imagining what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph
to literally raise the Son of God as their own child
must have been the most amazing and humbling thing
any human beings have ever been asked to do.

Although I am sure they never had to discipline Jesus, he is perfect after all, they must have had to teach him things. They must have helped him do things he was too young to do for himself. Or even more amazing, they must have waited patiently for him to try to do things on his own, and then lovingly convinced him to let them help.

They must have loved him the way a parent loves a child, with astounding patience and gentleness. Not because he needed correcting, but because he was small, and little, and growing. And he was theirs.

What was that like? I just wonder.

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Thank you, God, for helping me to see these years, as I raise Your children, in light of what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph to raise Your Son. Help me to have their patience and their gentleness. And help me to always remember that these children are gifts from You.

Amen.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

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