Wide Eyed and Mystified

If there’s one activity I love most right now as a new mom, it’s running with my daughter in the stroller.

OK, well there are actually a lot of activities I love with my baby, but stroller rides are definitely top two…perhaps only behind nursing.

But stroller rides in the fall…just about as perfect as you can get. Especially when it’s overcast and you can ride with the carriage shade open so she can see all the treetops and colorful leaves. (Forgive me if your child detested the stroller, as many do. Penelope loves it.)

But we’ve got a great set up…first: our dream stroller…which we bought on Black Friday last year right after we found out I was pregnant. It’s a Bugaboo Fox 5, and it is one thousand percent worth the price tag.

So okay, we’ve got the stroller, and then hooked to the stroller, we’ve got a little portable speaker, and I like to play worship music softly for Penny and I while we’re running.

It’s my favorite hour of the day. For the first twenty minutes, Penelope just laughs and laughs, staring at all the trees and me, in my ridiculously dorky visor. And then she’ll fall asleep and so I get to look at my precious baby while the miles tick away. It’s like time is standing still.

Today, when I was running, Penny had just woken up from sleeping, and was kind of getting her bearings about her. It was at a point in our run that she’s usually asleep for, or has to have the sunshade closed, because of the angle of the sun being able to hit her face. But it’s a gorgeous stretch underneath a thick canopy of all different colored leaves. It’s breathtaking. And today, under thick cloud cover, her sunshade was open.

And she was just mesmerized by the beauty around her. She had her mouth open, eyes were as wide as they could go, craning her neck all around to see the gorgeous trees and sky above. And I had the privilege to watch her experience such a transcendently beautiful scene for the first time.

And while all this was happening, the song “Wonder” by Hillsong was playing. And I heard the lyrics,
“Wide eyed, and mystified.
May we be just like a child, staring at the beauty of our King.
May we never lose our wonder.”

I almost laughed out loud at God providing me the literal visual of what this worship song is about.

May we be just like a child.

Over the past four months now, I’ve gotten to watch Penelope experience lots of “firsts” — from rolling over, to seeing snow, to recognizing her reflection in the mirror, to coming face to face with our family’s cute puppy dog. To watch her light up in wonder at these brand new things — it is such a joy for me.

And it makes me ponder: how can I be more like Penny when it comes to Jesus?

How can I renew my awe when it comes to the glory of the Father? Or stay mystified at the power of Christ, what He did for us…and what’s more: the meaning of Christmas.

I have been given such a gift this year: I get to experience Christmas for the “first” time again, through Penelope’s eyes. And so I get to explain to her (and in the process, remind myself) just what that blessed Christmas morn is all about.

I get to experience the wonder of Baby Jesus through Penny.

And maybe, at four months, she won’t understand it now, but it’s good practice for next year when she will.

But that’s my prayer for me and all of you: that we approach the manger this Christmas wide eyed, and mystified, like that of a little Child.

I don’t know about you, but I can so often become blasé about the true meaning of Christmas, and truly my faith in general. Mass can become rote; in my spontaneous prayer before bed, I find myself saying the same things over and over.

How would I act if I had wonder when it came to the Father’s love for us? Or if I were approaching the Lord in prayer for the first time?

How would I act if I were celebrating Jesus’ birth as the Christ Child, born to save me and the whole world, for the first time?

Wide eyed and mystified
May we be just like a child, staring at the beauty of our King.
May we never lose our wonder.