Waaaahhh….

That’s why my mom didn’t bring me to malls when I was a kid!

Yesterday, my dad and I went to Abreeza Mall with my nephews and nieces: Joshua, 10; Jannah, 9; Joseff, 7; and Jemimah, 6. Together with their mom (my sister Lotlot) and my brother-in-law, we had four grown-ups looking out for four kids. I kid you not; it was a high-intensity situation for me. I’m a licensed teacher and being with kids is not uncommon to me but remember that students are in a classroom and within school premises. As far as I was concerned, my students can do anything they wanted to do for as long as I don’t catch them doing it. Yesterday was a very different story and my usual laissez-faire attitude was ill-equipped to handle the situation as my nephews and nieces had the whole mall to destroy, to get lost in and to run the hell around! My eyes were darting to and fro when I don’t see any of the four and my heartbeat was erratic to say the least.

Being from Toril, which is a good part of 20 kilometers away from Abreeza, the kids were very excited as it was their first time to go in. They rode the motorized animal thingie, slid on the playground, and went on their own way (or so they thought). I’m ashamed to admit that I felt a bit embarrassed when they were shouting at each other to hurry along, threw a tantrum because we didn’t allow them to play in the arcade, and “Ooh!”-ed and “Aahh!”-ed at the automatic sliding doors and the open-sky rooftop. They had this wide-eyed wonder and idealistic innocence which, when compared to the jaded eyes and weary attitude of other shoppers, made them stood out.

Then we watched “Hugo” in 3D. It was their first time to watch 3D and this being so, we definitely drew stares from the other moviegoers.

“Hugo”, in a nutshell, is a story about brokenness and how it affects things in general and people in particular.

Which made me wonder; the kids’ naïveté against the adults’ cynicism, who was more broken?

Matthew 18: 3-4 says, “[T]ruly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” In effect, Jesus is telling us that a child-like attitude toward life is a prerequisite before entry into heaven. Take note- before entry!

Personally, I emerged out of childhood relatively unscathed. By the usual standards, I’m not irretrievably irreparable. But I must say that the wounds that did scathe made me un-childlike; untrusting, jaded, and a cynic. In a word, broken.

No drama here. I think that in one way or another, everybody gets broken by relationships, by circumstances, and by experiences. We think we learned from them but what we think we learned are not the only things we learned. Unconsciously, we also learn to be cautious, wary and distrusting- virtues that are non-existent in a mind of a child. Yes we still function but we’re broken nonetheless.

For the past few months, I’ve been praying for wisdom, prudence, discretion and a sense of responsibility for each of my nephews and nieces. I’ve also been asking God to protect them from untoward accidents and evil influences. Most of all, I’ve been praying for the Lord to lead us, their elders, into molding them into the persons who God called them to be. I pray that we be able to train them by the way they should go so that when they are old they will never depart from it.  With all these prayers, I can’t believe that I forgot another prayer; for us, their elders, to learn from the children about how to be like them- children.

Father, teach us how to be like a child again because in our search for our own ways, we seem to have forgotten that you also gave this commandment.

Abba, I know that my nephews and nieces will get chipped in some places but we ask you to lead us, their elders, so that we won’t be the reason for it. Fill us, both the elders and the children, with your Holy Spirit who will comfort and counsel us that whatever happens, our brokenness is made whole in your Son Jesus.

Amen.