a child's understanding

I am amazed how a child can come to an understanding of compassion, and how it makes a difference in others' lives. Yesterday was a sweet, beautiful reminder that we do nothing in vein, when a child is watching.

Caleb climbed up into his chair for lunch, and as I handed him his cup of milk and walked away to prepare his meal, I heard him talking jibberish quietly. As I turned to see if he was talking to me, he put his hands together and said, "a-meen!" Then he grabbed his cup and started drinking. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It wasn't as if he knew exactly what he was doing, or that he had a profound revelation of why we pray, but it was the beauty of repeating a gesture that he knew must be important, since he had seen and heard Daddy and Mommy do it several times.

And then he completely blew me away by the very next thing that happened. I made a noise in the freezer when I was putting something away, then closed the door. Caleb said, "You akay? Yes?" I had to ask him what he meant. He repeated himself, then pointed to the freezer, "Boom! You akay?" I got it, "oh yes. I'm okay, thank you for asking Caleb!" He nodded and went back to eating.

Precious! Absolutely precious!