Well the first good cold front has hit and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit excited about it. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always a big fan of fall. As far as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m concerned, it can come twice a year if it likes.
\nFall reminds me of being a young and not having a care in the world.
\nYes, even I was a child once. Not much shorter, just a lot skinnier.
\nI remember the piles of leaves in the front yard, the Papa Smurf and Pirate Halloween costumes.
\nI even vaguely remember a trip to East Texas where I accidentally pulled the hand off a scarecrow and freaked out.
\nAlong with the cooler fall weather, I was also reminded of childhood again last week.
\nI went and visited Sydney Joyce Skaggs for the first time on Thursday.
\nShe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right at two-weeks old now.
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing to think that at some point I was her size. That almost blows me away.
\nHer parents, B and Sara Skaggs (and her grandparents, aunts and uncles) are all very proud, as you can imagine.
\nBut I began to wonder, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll lose her innocence?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nI hope she never does, but we all know one day it will come.
\nI wonder when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll join the ranks of sarcasm and cynicism that has overtaken the rest of us.
\nWhere is that certain point where suddenly we lose that childish imagination — where a light bulb doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fascinate us, or a ceiling fan or us draw us into a trance?
\nWhere do we lose the point where we start doubting, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nWhen do we stop really believing Jesus is the only answer to all the questions?
\nAnd once it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone, can we ever go back? Once the world has beat us down and up, and black and blue, can we ever go back to that childlike innocence again?
\nRight now Sydney doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care who holds her or whose finger she wraps her tiny hands around — but one day she will.
\nOne day she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll learn, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk to strangers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t associate with the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwrong\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAnd her world of innocence will begin to fade away.
\nShe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll begin to join the rank and file of the rest of us and then the cycle will continue.
\nI talked about this with my friend Aaron, who has two wonderful children of his own, Amelia and Wilson.
\nAmelia, age 3 1\/2, hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen me in several months, but when I visited her last, she exclaimed loudly, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mommy – it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my friend!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nShe doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even remember my name, but she knows I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m her friend.
\nAnd Wilson, age 2 1\/2, is always more than willing to come give me a hug every time I show up and lets me throw him as high as I can over and over again.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The great thing about children is you get to see the world through their eyes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Aaron said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My kids do things all the time that bring back memories I forgot I had. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never forget the expression on Amelia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face on her first Christmas when she opened up a present and saw this big bright red teddy bear.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I knew I had lost the joy in Christmas years ago as a teenager. But when I saw that face, I had it back for the first time since I was a child myself.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nOh, if only we could all return to that innocence.
\nBefore our first heartache, our first rejection, our first missed-bill, our first car accident, our first experience with death.
\nSydney, Amelia and Wilson have their entire lives before them. And as friends of their parents, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do everything in my power to make the world a little better for them.
\nAnd hopefully along the way, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to see the world through their eyes and remember what it was like to be young again.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kingdom. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same as receiving me.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBut if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll soon wish you hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to make it worse–and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doomsday to you if you do.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Matthew 18:2-7<\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well the first good cold front has hit and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit excited about it. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always a big fan of fall. As far as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m concerned, it can come twice a year if it likes. Fall reminds me of being a young and not having a care in the world. Yes, even I was … Continue reading This weeks column: Eyes of a child<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-74","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}