Every now and then, in moments as unbidden as February’s first jonquil and as fleeting as November’s last leaf, you are, again, the child you were. It is more than just remembering something from your childhood. It is more than just a little déjà vu. It is more than just longing “to be a kid again.” It is a moment of recognition, a moment in which you realize that who you are right now really is who you were back then.

It doesn’t happen often. And you can’t make it happen, so it is futile to try and “work it up.” It just comes. Only seldom does it visit. Never long does it linger. But every now and then, in moments as unbidden as a rainbow’s bend and as fleeting as a lightning bug’s blink, it dawns on you that, no matter how all grown-up you may be, you are yet the child you were. It is a moment of recognition . . . a little shimmer of light that shows you for a second who you really are. Who you are is who you were.

It is a moment of recognition that travels mostly on the quiet wings of simple things. I have never been able to conjure it up, but it has conjured up on me all by itself in some unplanned moments at some unlikely places. A couple of times, that moment of recognition has so utterly seized me that it left me immobilized by the presence of God . . . a sacramental moment in which I knew that however much I had changed, I was yet, somehow, the child I once was.

It happened once in the garden plot behind the house where I grew up. I was thirty-eight years old. The rest of the family was in the house. I wandered away from the others, across the back yard, past the tool shed, through the rickety gate, beyond the hog-wire fence, into the sandy soil of the garden that my now aged and dying father had plowed forever but would never plow again. As I stood there, alone, in the cold wind of a December sunset, I glanced down at my shiny black shoes, dusty gray from my journey to the center of the field. And it happened. As unbidden as the firewood spark that leaps out into the parlor, and as fleeting as the chimney smoke that grays off into the cloud, it came and went. It was a moment in which I knew that the man in the black wing tips, standing in the garden, hoping against hope that his father would soon go back to plowing, was the same person as the kid in the black high-tops, working in the garden, hoping against hope that his daddy would soon stop plowing. I knew, for one silent moment, that who I am is who I was. I don’t just remember things from that kid’s life; I am that kid. And I knew it. For a powerful, sacred moment I understood that who I am now is, in some inexplicable but undeniable way, who I was then.

It happened again the night he died. As I stood with my hand on my father’s forehead and watched the heart monitor’s rough places become plain, it happened again. For a moment, for one agonizingly sad, unspeakably sacred moment, it dawned on me that I was just a kid whose father was gone. It came and went in a breath. It didn’t last as long as the wink of a dove’s eye. I believe it comes to most grown-ups when one of their parents dies. It is a sad but sacred moment, when, for one unbidden, fleeting, thin splinter of a second, it occurs to you that you’re just a kid who no longer has a mama or a daddy. For one sacred moment, you recognize yourself, and you know that who you are is who you were. You don’t just remember that child you used to be. You are that child you used to be.

Needless to say, you have to be careful with all of this talk about “who you are is who you were.” The other side of the truth is that “who you are is who you have become.” In many ways, who you are is not at all who you were. In fact, in most ways, who you are is who you have become. We have changed in a long list of ways since we were children. We don’t look the same or think the same or act the same. Who we now are is quite different from who we once were. We are not the same because we have aged physically. We are not the same because we have matured emotionally. We are not the same because we have trusted God’s grace and been converted to a new life (“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” [2 Cor 5:17]). We are not the same because we have grown theologically (“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” [2 Pet 3:18a]). We are not the same because we are all grown-up (“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” [1 Cor 13:11]).

And yet, there are those moments, those quiet, sacred, unbidden, fleeting moments when you realize that somewhere deep down inside of you is that little girl. Somewhere at the hidden center of you is that little boy. You will probably know it best when one of your parents dies . . . and in a tiny handful of other unbidden, fleeting moments that are scattered throughout a lifetime.

It is not a “second childhood.” It is the first childhood, sneaking up on us, catching up to us from behind, saying in a whisper, “You’re it.” And then it is gone, but it leaves us knowing that, no matter how grown-up we are, no matter how much we have changed, who we are is, somehow, who we were. (Of course, we dare not say anything about it. It just wouldn’t do to mention it. No one would understand.) But though no one would understand what you said, everyone would know what you meant. Because, for everyone, it is somehow true. Who we are is who we were. Amen.

Order this book from
our online bookstore