I don’t mean to wander off, really. I’m safer when I’m near my Father, and happier. He protects me and loves me; I know this, and more than just knowing it, I feel it. These times when I stray away aren’t a purposeful movement--at least, not as a whole. They start with one little step. Not even a step off the path. Maybe they don’t even start with a step. Maybe the start when I let go of His hand, and try to walk on my own. I’m next to Him still and can still hear His voice and He can reach down and catch me any time. It’s just that my hand is hot and I’m a big girl now. I don’t see a dark and nasty sin and go running after it. It’s the little things that lead me off. The “pretties”.
You should know what a pretty is. All little girls do, I’m sure. Girls are obsessed with pretty things almost from the moment their born. It’s one of the first words they learn to say, and once it enters the vocabulary, it is in common usage. Mommy’s new dress is “pretty” and when she does the little girl’s hair in braids, the little girl is “pretty” too. And then there’s that pretty tea set that’s up in the china cupboard covered in dainty roses. And one day, a cup and saucer sit on the table, right where the little girl’s dazzled eyes can see them, and her eager hands can reach them. In a few seconds and with a good, loud smash, the “pretty” is in many pieces on the floor. The little girl sits and cries over the “pretty” because it is gone.
It’s like being a little girl in a garden. All the flowers are pretty, and a well tended garden has beautiful flowers right near the path in easy sight. All I want to do is pick every single flower and put them in my hair so I can be pretty too, but of course that is against the rules, and my Father is watching me. And then something--maybe a butterfly, or a distant flower, or a bird--catches my eye. Whatever it is, it’s a pretty and my girlish heart wants to have it. I walk after it slowly, carefully judging. But it’s always just a little beyond me. Pretty soon I have forgotten everything except the pretty thing I am chasing excitedly. I don’t realize anything might be wrong.
Until I look up. The world is not so pretty any more. The flower garden is gone, the pretty thing I have been chasing is gone, and worst of all, Father is not right beside me any more. I didn’t think I’d wandered that long or gone that far. And surely He would have called me back if I had gone off--or maybe He did. I wasn’t really listening. In fact, I had kind of forgotten all about Him. At those moments nothing looks beautiful any more. The only thing that is pretty at that moment is home and my Daddy’s protective arms. Of course, I didn’t think about that when I wandered off. It’s only now, when I am lost and scared, that I realize the only beautiful thing in the world--the thing that makes every other thing “pretty”--is my Father.
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