beautiful girls

I babysat some girls a few nights ago.

Have you ever noticed how statements like that sometimes seem like frustrating preliminaries? They provoke in you some emotions, because you understand everything that is associated with that sentence, but to others, it is a frustrating preliminary.

Nevertheless, I babysat some girls a few nights ago.

They were beautiful. It struck me. They were each intrinsically, inherently captivating. The kind that melts your heart and makes you want them to only experience the best all their lives and not be tattered ever by the world and its ways. 10, 7 and 2. I think. They all had the same mother, but three different fathers, and even though I have never met any of their fathers, I could see them in those girls.

The youngest they called Tator, a little girl who is as raw in her beauty as two-year-old girls should be. She behaved in such a way that results from the mindset and heart attitude, "Look at me! Look at how pretty I am!" - a mindset us older girls lose grips on much too quickly.

We watched Old Yeller which produced in me, as movies often do, an array of a deep monologue of thoughts and a representation in symbols of concepts deeper than the actual movie (that is worthy of its own blog), but the present demand for attention is one little girl who didn't care much about anything on the tv, but stared at me as I watched it. In her gaze, she reached her little glommy hand over and touched my arm softly. She was enamored as little children often are with new and had a grin as she looked at me. But there was a question she asked by her gesture. Am I lovable? Do you, new girl, do you love me? Am I lovely?

Of course you are, dear one, "Do you want to come by me?" She nodded in response and came next to me where we watched the movie together.

Erica

Chaos held the group of three-year-olds in its hand that day when I walked into P3 for work study. I had my work cut out for me; naptime was just around the corner.
As we prepared for naptime, I noticed that Erica was especially wound up, and, as usual, all the other kids closed their eyes in surrender to their archenemy Sleep while she was still wide-eyed.

The room was completely transformed from when I first walked in. The lights were off, there was soft music playing, and all were fast asleep...except Erica. I leaned over her and stroked her face with my fingertips. My thoughts drifted as I studied her eyes.
This girl will experience pain. She will probably collapse under the weight of it at some point. This little one will feel worthless. She will feel inadequate. Unlovable. Incomplete. Injured.
My heart broke.
"Erica, Jesus loves you," I whispered. "Jesus is God's son, and He made you before You were born. He knows what you will look like and what you're going to be like when you grow up. He knows everything about you, and He loves you. He thinks you're valuable." I paused to reposition. I wanted to communicate Jesus' love to her right then, in some attempt to relay it to her for a time when she'd need it - for the moment long from now when her world crashes down on her and makes no sense, for the moment when no one is on her side. "Do you want to sit in my lap?"
"Yes," came her soft answer. I scooped her and her blanket up in my arms and rocked. Her eyes grew heavier. Her body grew limper; and as I watched this little girl fall asleep, I sat mezmerized. How beautiful she was! That little life, right there in my arms. A tear slipped off my nose onto her blanket.
"Lord, let her know Your love. Let her experience it. Hold this little girl in your arms and penetrate Your truths into her heart."