Rag Doll

lyricoc@yahoo.com

When I was in my twenties, my neighbor, Tom was a Christian, I was brought up Catholic so we had many talks about Christianity. I don’t feel like I really understood the whole religion thing and Tom said something to me that truly upset me at the time.  He said that we were like filthy rags to God.

I spent the next day crying because I felt so low and worthless.  I grew up believing that we had to work our way into heaven and I thought I was doing my part, but hearing that God thinks of us as filthy rags, hurt me to the core.  

The next evening, I went to Tom and told him just what I was feeling, I told him that I thought God loved us and that I didn’t understand what he had told me the day before.  

Tom went on to explain that God loves us even though we are filthy rags to him just as a child loves her rag doll.  Being a girl, I could remember back to a time that my baby Susie meant everything to me.  I took care of that doll just as a mother would love and take care of her own child.  

In so many scriptures, Jesus tells us to be like a child.  Children believe in things that can’t be seen, that is what faith is, and it takes faith to please God.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:25, “I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”  This scripture goes on to say, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yolk upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

My daughter, Liz, has been having a hard time lately and I told her something I had just heard, “Before you can become that beautiful butterfly, you must rest in your cocoon.  

I started life as a baby, grew to be a child and then to an adult.  I became a Christian in my late twenties, then I was already an adult.  I know that was the point that God put me into this cocoon where I have been growing and changing and one day I will emerge, a beauty butterfly, ready to see God.  

Until that time comes, I will give my yoke to Jesus and I will rest in God’s cocoon.  I will eventually shed my adult skin and I will be child like in the ways of our Lord, and now I know He loves me just as I loved my baby Susie.