A Child's Song

Words of love

July 25, 2005

Joel Akin

 There are words to describe love. It is like a challenge. Take a challenge and split it and two and on one half you have Chance and the other Hope. Hope is the way of challenging Chance. We look at Challenges and we look at Hope and we think if I throw the dice love will cast its wings my way. We look at love and think "Is there a Chance?" Of course we all want love in our hearts. We want to find love and cherish it and link our hearts to it and live a life of rapturous attendance. But sometimes love comes with sorrows and sadness and we quiver with our arrows of anger or danger signals on our skin. We feel afraid and our hair lifts and we think danger is just around the corner.

 When I think of Chance I think of romance. I think of what might be and what will be and what can be. It is like reaching for the star. We look at it and think "Wow, that star loves me." It winks at us with its single eye and we wink back and laugh and wish our way towards it. Love sometimes stinks but wouldn't it be great, if just for a night, just once night that love winked back? Would it not be something if Chance winged her chariots towards us and gave us the single wish of our heart? To find love?

 Sometimes love is a romantic encounter formulated in the dark thoughts of our heart. We look towards it and we begin to imagine what might be. Love. Like a chance encounter we find it in the least expected places of life. We end up listing to one side or another. Like a ship tossed by huge ocean waves we are carried towards plateau's and depths of life. One moment we sink into oblivion hoping for the best ecstasy of hope and joy. There in the dark depths of life we find little or nothing. But sometimes, just sometimes we find a shiny gemstone, a little light to guide our path. And we wing our way towards it and wink at it and it winks back. And we sing a little and dance a little and maybe even chuckle. Its not that love is a forward glance but sometimes a glimpse of what might be. Our hearts are like a child's and we sing and dance around the daisy in the middle of the flowered fields and we think "Oh joyful life..."

 But wouldn't it just be great if love caught us into her arms? Into her arms and carried us up towards the ultimate romantic encounter? Towards the arms of heaven. Towards the arms of Father God. Towards the throne room of Glory and the Hope of His Grace? I think of love like these thoughts. They carry me up, up, up towards the light of His glory. And I think "What am I to Him? What am I, a man, to the King of Kings?" What do I deserve or need more then just the touch of His love in my heart?

 There are rooms in glory prepared for the hearts of those who love Him. I think of those places with delight. It is my right to do so. Yet I know that in my heart I am still unprepared and unromanced and unknown by the Heralds that call my name. I hear their sighs and longings and desires and I think "How can I a mere child understand Chance, Hope and love and all the things I want in life and love?"

 We are children. There is no denying the fascinations of it. Like children we are romanced towards the unknown tree, the distant hill, the bubbling brook with its pretty stones. We reach for that which glints and glistens and we search for the touch of joy in the sounds of the frog and the cricket.

 At night we listen to their songs and we watch the dancing firefly and the flitting moths against the light post. The bats which mock our attempts to catch and the flies and squitoes which bug us at night. Still there is within our heart a grasp of hope. It is called the search for love. Like love we are challenged towards a distant star. We look towards it night after night. Sometimes the moon obscures our vision with its brightness but it doesn't tend our quest towards dumbness but towards understanding. It is on the darkest nights that shooting stars hold our fascinated awe and our longing for understanding. We reach up grasping still for things we cannot see and long for chance encounters of things we do not know. I still see God as the great unknown one. I long for His touch still. He the great creator built the heart that beats inside me. I think of things like Chance and Hope and reach for those as well knowing they are the songs in the night. The cricket, the frog, the chirping sounds of the cicada. It is night time and its mysteries which give me understanding of grace and life.

 Who among us holds the captured frog and doesn't wish it well on its journey? Do we not see the painted turtle swimming neath the lily pad? How long have I wished for love and searched for its depths. I have chanced upon it in my life but the challenge of the dice failed to bring the love I wished and longed for my way. I cried out to the stars and to God and to the beauty of the things He had created.

 When I sit down at the table for breakfast do I think of all the things He God has made? Perhaps not but I still sit and I still enjoy the repast of the moment. The berries and fruits and cereals and eggs and toast. It is a simple form of love for the things that were made. A making of toast? An egg? Are they the search for love? I guess we like children all go astray in some way. We are lost in understanding and its search for love and intimacy. Do we look up or down? Sideways or at an angle? Do we love Hope and do we love chance? Do we take the things brought to us and use them to our advantage? Do we look to the skies during the day and see the beauty of the rain and the beauty of the clouds? I see a blue sky but do I feel blue? No. But I do feel blue sometimes. It is part of the passage of understanding. I look for answers and I find them in the Autumn's kisses, the frost embraces, the child's hand held in mine.

 I look for understanding in chance and see it in hope. Hope is like the night time kiss which comes unexpectedly on the cheek. The friendship which was forgotten reignited. I see it in things I cannot explain readily or easily.

 Hope stands like the compass chart. She is there smiling towards us. I feel like a child to her and I see her calling me forward to her embraces. Still there is chance encounters. Things we cannot ever fully explain. We are drawn to them by Time and through Time and by the rhythm of things not understood. All of us are drawn forward towards these encounters. We are like birds riding the wings of the winds to nether woods, nether lands and places unknown to the eyes of men. We are riding those winds towards a destiny we cannot fully understand. We are linked towards the arms of the Great God of all time and chance and circumstance. We ride towards the things that drive us forward. The things called time, chance and circumstance. Yet I do not see it as a predestined thing though one could say time is the great predestinator that brings us all down the same path.

 We are drawn forward and at the end I see God. I see His hand guiding me forward and I see His smile waiting for me. I see in it the heart of one who loves me and I see Him with the Hope of more then chance and time. But that of a son waiting to embrace his long lost father. Waiting to see the light of those eyes, the sparkle and the wink and knowing that I saw and heard Him before in all those child like days. I'm coming home father. I'm coming home soon.

With love

your son

Joel