Little Boys & Jesus

I remember a little boy fighting bugs in the garden. Fluffy blonde hair flapping everywhere as he jumped in hysteria. The bugs were getting bigger and braver and the nerf sword was failing him. I heard my youngest brother's distress calls and with my maternal drive in full gear, had him on my back and in the house where we surveyed the damage. Being satisfied to find no wounds on his body, peace returned to the then 5-year-old and all went back to normal.

I brought up the event a few days later, hoping it would be a fond memory of his big sister being there in his time of distress. To my shock, he looked at me in disbelief:

“You weren’t there,” he said. I assured him I was.

He looked at me like I was telling a joke.

“No, no, no. Danny [big brother] carried me. You weren’t even outside!”

To say I was frustrated was an understatement but he wouldn’t be convinced otherwise. I gave up the argument because it wasn’t worth it but it bothered me for most of that day,

until I heard a familiar, unarming voice in my spirit:

“Sometimes you do this to Me.”

Sometimes I do this to Jesus. He comes in to rescue me from my big and small problems which are all tiny to Him but He cares about all of it because I do. And how quickly do I give credit to another person or thing, that in my mind or emotion was the real rescuer. Saying to Him in my confusion and new struggle, “You weren’t there”, when He is all that was there.

Elijah came back to me later that day, with his memory refreshed from a few witnesses who backed up my story.

"You were there Elsa! Thank you for carrying me," he said.

And I praise Jesus that He never lets me forget long what I need to hold onto: it's by the grace of God not only that we are rescued, but that we remember well our rescue. So in all the moments and in their memory we praise Yehovah and remind our fearfulness: we have seen Him and we thank Him, for how He carried us then and carries us now on eagles' wings, to bring us to Himself. (Exodus 19:4)