empty chair or child's encounter with our Savior

Last week at youth camp, I believe Ella, my two year old, grew as close to God as any of my teenagers. When she visited the OKC Bombing memorial She wanted to pray for the kids who lost their lives because of a statue of crying Jesus. She didn't want Jesus to cry or the kids to hurt. During worship, she at first asked on of our teenagers Jesus commin' ? ...a few minutes later she answered by telling the same girl that in fact Jesus commin' !!! and quickly raised her hands in worship.

So Ella saw Jesus tonight.....I had a combination of tears and goose bumps...

She and I were at the top of the stairs leading down to the nursery area in our church. Ella wanted to go downstairs. She walked down a couple of steps and stopped. She strained her neck to look down the stairs, behind our Kidzone booth, to an empty chair.

She pointed and looked up at me. "Jesus down 'ner', " she said.

I asked if she saw Jesus. She nodded. "Her sit down" (at this stage of her speech development all genders are her).

As all dads probably would, I agreed that Jesus was down there, because Jesus is everywhere.

"I scared, Jesus. " Ella says with a bit of a scared look.

I assured her that she didn't have to be afraid of Jesus, that He loves us, and gives us the power to not be scared. She knows about Jesus' power because of our Vacation Bible School. Almost daily, at some point, she will pull out her bible buddies from VBS and say Jesus....power!!! .

She just pointed again and repeated that Jesus was down ner and that her sit down.

A couple of moments went by as she again bent her neck to see the empty chair and then look at me again. Then the sound of kids in our gym playing caught her attention.

"I wan' go da gym"

We walked down to the bottom of the steps with her holding my index finger.

Ella led me over to the empty chair, where she saw Jesus.

" ello Jesus" , she said as she waved at the empty chair containing only a cushion.

Is Jesus there?, I asked. She nodded again, pointed at the chair, " "Her sit down" , she informed me. A few seconds went by as we both kind of looked at the chair.

Ella could hear the kids in the gym again and wanted to go on to the gym. With a quick wave to the chair and bye, she pulled my finger leading me down the hallway to the gym.

Chills and tears consumed me for a moment as I prayed. Not knowing what else to do.

Had my daughter seen Jesus? Had I missed it? Why didn't I see? Why can't we see like that?

The event totally reminded me of the scenes from Prince Caspian when Lucy would see Aslan and the others would not.

How amazing is it to see with the eyes and believe with the heart of child. If we could all be this innocent.

Lord let me do both. I want to see you, I want to feel you. Show yourself to me.

Matthew 18:2
For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're 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's kingdom.