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Writer's pictureChinwe Njoku

Hospital Kids Watch

Recently I’ve had to visit the hospital four times after visiting a new saloon once, more on that in a later blog post. Maybe. And herein lies the reason why I’ve hibernated so long between posts. Please bear with me.

When I walked in, there were four kids aged from 4 months (heard mum mention his age to another mum) to possibly ~6/7 years old. Three were from the same family with mum and grandma, visiting on the baby’s behalf. The 4th child was with her mum, I assume and not allowed to play with the other two who were sizeable enough to run around the waiting area.

Image credit: Clipartsign

The room dynamic changed when another family came in with two kids. I could almost tell immediately that it was a non-white-British (teacher-ese) family. The older of these two new entrants was about the same age of the oldest daughter in the family of 3 kids. I hope I haven’t lost you yet. Stay with me, stay with me!

As I was messing about with my phone to pass the waiting time, I realised the two older children had started to play hide and seek and tag, you’re it, together. It was just beautiful to watch them play together. There was an obvious language barrier when conversations were tried to be started but as soon as the games resumed, that barrier came crashing down. It was all real smiles and laughs.

Detour: It just reminded me of another universal language – Maths. Once a child knows their times tables, addition and subtraction, plus numbers: 1, 2, 3, till 0, you can teach them any Maths topic and they’ll get it even if they’re from another planet!!

Another universal language is Love, of course! I mean GOD is love (1 John 4:18). So once I speak love to someone, it shows in my actions towards that person, that I don’t need to speak their earthly mother-tongue for them to know I love them. I’m speaking a language that is innate to their design as by the Creator of the universe. 

Back to the story: The irony of the situation was that there were other adults in the room sat within hearing distance of each other but no conversation started, not even from me who was sat on the same red sofa next to another guy waiting to be seen. *covers head in shame*

The innocence of the interaction of the kids was beautiful and almost holy to watch. There was little input from their parents. Finally, the 3-kid family was done with their appointment and then left, leaving the sweet non-English kid back to being with mum and her baby brother. By this time, two 1-kid families had come in.

Again, the innocence of childhood was brought to bear. The kids from these two new families started to play together-ish, which must have been what prompted their parents to exchange a couple of sentences.

But then in comes the sweet non-English kid to join in the play. Her smile was so beautiful and she was started playing with her younger brother and one of the other kids, while singing to herself.

Moral of my story: What if we behaved like children? Not childish. I mean the Bible says to accept the kingdom of GOD as a little child to gain entrance (Mark 10:15). What if we carried innocence in our hearts towards those we came in contact with? Without suspicion or stereotyping or pre-judging them? What if our arms were open to welcome others into our space so we can be blessings to each other in a symbiotic manner?

You know Jesus has a special place for children that He equated ministering to Himself and Father GOD to ministering to a child (Luke 9:48, Matthew 10:42).

To your having a heart like a child’s, . . . .

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