Heart's Joy

“Come on, let’s wash your hands,” I said to the 22-month-old girl in the church nursery yesterday. They had had a treat, and she was a little sticky. The toddler had been playing with the toy kitchen, and she responded by looking up at me and placing her hands under the plastic faucet of the play sink, as if fully expecting the water to gush out.

How do babies who hardly talk know so much? I had given my granddaughter, almost two, a miniature Barbie from MacDonalds, which she played with by hugging, and touseling the long hair. Then I snapped on the detachable wings which came with the doll, and she immediately began holding it aloft to fly! Who knew? Then later, she found some small airplanes in the toy area of the Cracker Barrel store where we had eaten, and “flew” them around, as high as she could reach.

Since I am not around my little granddaughter much, I am always surprised by the great strides in development she has made since the last time I saw her. Thankfully, her parents try to keep us abreast of the children’s progress and the funny things they do. Yesterday our son, Jamie, told me of Maddie’s reaction when he went to pick her up from the nursery in their church after Sunday services. When she saw him, she grinned gleefully, dropped her toy and rocketed to him, throwing her arms around him like a drowning swimmer.

It reminded me of what happened in our home last night. We had been keeping our son, Greg’s, small terrier while he took his family on a weekend trip. Although the dog knows us well, it took her awhile to settle in and stop hovering around the door as if hoping they would walk in. She was well behaved and friendly, though, and just before it was time to go home, she was finally consenting to cuddle on my husband’s lap. Then my daughter-in-law, Joanna, came by to pick her up. I called the dog to come from the kitchen and got no immediate response. Then Joanna called her, and at the sound of her mistress’s voice she shot like a bullet into the room, almost knocking Joanna off her feet in her unadulterated glee at being reunited.

I couldn’t help but think of the parallel of the joy that will be ours when we see our Father in Heaven, and we are reunited with our absent loved ones. The Bible says “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” I Corinthians 2:9. Not unlike the babies, we can only imagine.