Figuring It Out

(Re-post from 2013. This showed up in my "timehop" on Facebook and I just had to reprint it! Enjoy!)

It was a Monday morning. The stark reality of responsibilities, getting up and ready for school and work, and settling into the swing of our week had hit me again. It was quite the opposite for my five year old, Leah, who was dreamily pondering before she ran into my room as I was just ready to head downstairs.

"MOM! Guess what?! I've figured it out!"

Her enthusiasm was enough to make me stop and sit on the bed and really listen to her. Sometimes I don't take enough time to slow down and really listen to my children. Thank God I did this time! "What did you figure out, Leah?" She took a deep breath and revealed her newly discovered treasure:

"We're the sheep!"

Now, Leah has been in our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program for 3 years now, and she has heard and seen the parable of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. She knew that he calls his sheep by name, that he leads them out, that he loves them, and that he would stop at nothing to find a sheep that was lost. Her catechists, as all CGS catechists do, stopped there. We don't push them to "figure out" the parable. We just let them enjoy the Good Shepherd and his great love and care for his sheep. As Sofia Cavalletti, the co-founder of CGS, said, "If a parable does not wish to state clearly the meaning it teaches, then there is a reason." Nobody wants to think long and hard about a riddle whose answer is already given. A puzzle someone else has completed holds no interest for us.

Leah had been pondering this parable that particular Monday morning, and it was a very special day for her.

"We're the sheep! And we're the ones who get lost! When we sin, our hearts go away from Jesus, just like the sheep go away from the shepherd. We're the sheep!"

"And what happens when we sin and go away from Jesus?" I asked her. She didn't even pause:

"He looks for us and searches and will never stop until he finds us, just like the shepherd. And then, when he finds us..." She looked up and even raised her hands a little, "He REJOICES!"

I was so blessed to share that moment with her, a moment of discovering just how loved and special she is to Jesus. This moment was so profound to her, that when she arrived at school that morning, she announced to her teacher,

"Ms. Ginger, I've figured out LIFE."

And in so many ways, she had. Over the course of the next decades of her life, she will likely have to relearn this truth in many different ways. But seeing through the eyes of someone who is just 5 years old, I think I've figured out something new about life, too.