I'm sitting here in the lobby of my hotel (well, I don't own it but I'm staying at it so I figure it's just easier to call it mine). As in most hotel lobbies there is the front desk with the employees standing safely behind it, being constantly interrupted from they're relatively slow flow of people checking in and out by a constantly ringing phone. They really should have it so that you can get cool ringtones for that phone because the blasé one they have is proving to be quite annoying.
Anyway, I'm sitting here working on a short story I hope to turn into a novel for teenagers and young adults. Occasionally I glance up to see who's coming in the sliding doors or to watch the excited, energetic tyke that is running around the lobby in a wobbly, off balance sort of way.
Before I noticed her I was thinking about the adults milling about. How many know Jesus? How many of them will I see at the right entrance gates when I make my way into heaven?
Then I saw the little curly-haired, irresistibly adorable imp slapping her shoes on the tiled floor as she ran nowhere in particular. God's child. He loves her. He created her. Is she being told that? Do her parents tell her how much Jesus loves her and how much he wants her to love him? Is she told how special she is - a child of God. Does she know that he wants to make her his very own special little Princess? I wonder and sadly think of how low the odds are that this is a reality.
One day, when she's a little older and has made a few (or many) mistakes, will someone come up beside her and lead her to her ever-loving, all-mighty, completely-forgiving God? What a party would go on in heaven if this happened! Little girl lost, little girl found.
We were all once like this little girl. But now, there are so many grown-up little girls that are crushed and broken because no one has let them in on the only way to find true peace, joy, love, and forgiveness - the gift that Jesus Christ blessed us with when he died on the cross, carrying our every sin upon his heaving shoulders.
Will you be that one to share the not-so-secret secret? It will make all the difference in the world to that one-time, long-ago little girl.
