oh, to be four years old again...

I recently read a book called "Heaven Is For Real" by Todd Burpo. It's the true story of his four year old son who was stricken with appendicitis and had emergency surgery to remove his appendix and clean out his insides from the damage of the rupture. During surgery, Colton (the four year old) claims to have left his body and visited Heaven, bringing back colorful pictures of what he saw and who he met along his journey. The story is very inspiring, and the claims he made really rock you to the core. It's a true story, and the author can honestly back that up. How many four year olds know what their father's father looked like when he was in his youth? Colton does, because he met "Pop" while he was in heaven.

The quote that stood out to me the most in the book was this;

"What is childlike humility? It's not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It's that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think. The same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy, or point out loudly that you have a booger hanging out of your nose, is what is required to enter heaven. It is the opposite of ignorance- it is intellectual honesty: to be willing to accept reality and to call things what they are even when it is hard."

I really wish I could go back to my childhood and return as an adult with that same honesty. All too often I find myself worrying about what others think, not fully throwing myself into activities because I am worried about how "stupid I will look". And about that whole "accepting reality" thing... I struggle daily with this one. Whether it's paying my student loans, bills, relationships, health, really anything at all, I have a hard time accepting the reality of the things that I go through. I would love to just put everything on hold and run away for a while, but that's not reality. I can't just have my mom put my friends in timeout when they make me upset and then when they return it's like nothing happened... that childlike honesty and playfulness without regard to others is a dream I would do anything to make a reality.
Really this was a great book. Makes your mind wander and question even deeper your beliefs of heaven and the afterlife and what really is waiting for us "up there". I highly recommend it!

My sisters and I when we were little...

Jenna, Me and Morgan