Last week, I happened to look outside my kitchen window and saw that two of my neighbor's kids had set up a lemonade stand. My mom and I were commenting on how cute the little kids were to have their own lemonade stand on a hot summer's day, and I remember thinking, "Wow, there aren't a whole lot of kids who do this anymore." When I was younger, my friends and I set up lemonade stands all the time. Granted, we never made that much money, and we usually just drank most of the lemonade ourselves, but regardless it was always exciting to see what kind of profit we had made from each. As my mom and I continued to talk about how adorable the little neighbor kids were with their little business, I was trying to pinpoint specifically what it was that I liked about it, then it came to me. I said to my mom, "I like that some kids still do lemonade stands because to me it just shows their innocence."
Children have a purity to them. They have not had a lot of experiences that taught them to hate, or to presume negatively towards someone. Instead they are honest, they obey their parents as they were taught and they learn from their parents what is right and what is wrong. To me, I believe that we were all born naturally to love others, but hate is something learned, not something we naturally already have in us. So when exactly do we lose our child-like innocence? If you're looking for a specific time or year, unfortunately, I cannot do that, but we can make some observations.
I was home-schooled from grade school all the way through high school, and something a lot of people told me that they assumed about home-schoolers was that they were innocent and sheltered. In a way, that could be true depending on the person, because we are not exposed to everything that some children are exposed to at say, a public school, for example. But regardless of whether or not you were home-schooled or you went to public school, the things we experience all vary depending on the person. I had a rude awakening when I went to my first driver's ed in-class session hearing all of the things that the other local public school kids my age talked about and things they have done. I remember thinking I could not even imagine living like that or having friends that lived like that. I always knew that there were still people in the world that did immoral things but that was probably one of the first times that I actually heard with my own ears what these teens were doing. Moments like these made me grateful that I was home-schooled because while I was always taught that certain things were wrong and certain things were right, I always knew there were still people in the world that chose to do the wrong things and that they always had consequences for their actions. My point about being home-schooled is that I was made aware of the evil that still exists in this world from the guidance of my parents. (And this isn't to say that home-schooling is the only right way to teach kids!) So, in a way, you could say there was some sort of "innocence" taken away from me when I realized that this lifestyle was really how some people lived.
Mencius, the philosopher, once said: "Great is the man who has not lost his child-like heart." As God's creation we know that He is our Father, and we are His children, and we are called to have child-like faith. Jesus specifically says in the book of Matthew that we must "become as little children" in order to enter the gates of heaven. What he means by that is this: we are called to be submissive to the will of the Father and to attain meekness. Faith is what builds our character. I like to think of life as a kind of racing contest: say we are all on a "life race" to heaven. As a child, we see the prize (in this case it is heaven), and we strive to win because we know what the prize is. As an adult, we tend to forget about this prize because there are hurdles and other obstacles that could get in our way that distract us from it. Children are trusting, they enjoy little things, accept simplicity and have the most faith of anyone.
As adults, we can live like this, too. Children are essential in this world to show us how to live simply and to love wholeheartedly. Let us not lose our innocence, but instead remind ourselves that we are God's children and He is our Father, and He will provide for us, so that at the end of the day we too can say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7)
