can the tea melt, mama?

She had forgotten her cup full of sweet tea in her cupholder, having found the sweet but frozen surprise in her cupholder the following morning as we made haste to Friday’s ballet lesson.

As we drive, she baffles me with her wondrous mind, with a delicate hair line glow of her childlike mind bursting through every thought- every spoken word.

Four is anything but ordinary. With my girl, it is the magic of looking around our school room at these aging faces, yet seeing one impersonating a Disney princess- dressed to the nines in that dress-up outfit, all the while taking such careful attention to her note-taking, Es, Bs, Ms, and Ys spaced in random assortments forming words only she can recount. Four is belting heartfelt tunes that she comes up with as she colors, and filling in the gaps of songs with lyrics that aren’t as accurate as her confidence displays. Four is a jar of spice. Have you ever taken the cinnamon test? Don’t. But for those of you who experienced this madness when it was popular, you know. That teaspoon of spice coats every inch of saliva and leaves you hacking up puffs of cinnamon. It’s Emmy Sue on the days she would prefer me listen to her than vice versa, telling me that she is going to let her dad know not to buy me anything at the store because I am being bad. The facial expressions in her stubborn anger, the words casually being hung out to dry, “If you apologize, I’ll apologize.” I read a book last summer that said not to laugh because sin is sin, and I do not laugh. But I tend to stare wondrously.

So we buckled up and backed out of the driveway last Friday when she looked at her frozen cup of sweet tea and asked, “Can the tea melt, mama?”

Because she has no idea. She is four and she doesn’t know that water turns to ice and ice to water, let alone what’s about to happen to her solidified block of sweet tea that was left out too long and is now taking on a different form. Is this like curdled milk? What’s going on?

Will it melt? And I hear the Lord telling his disciples around him trying to disperse the families who keep trying to bring their children to Him to let them come.

Let them come, he says. You will never receive the kingdom if you’re not like them.

That’s one of the scriptures we can trip over because there isn’t a list. He never rattles off exactly what this entails. Childlike wonder, we say. Faith, we say. But what does that really mean?

Asking like there aren’t any limits.

How many times in scriptures he says ask me for anything! Nothing is too hard for me! And sometimes we will. We will ask him for things within the boundaries of what we deem possible. But what about the God who gives the blind their sight? What about the God who breathed and out came galaxies? What about the God who turned a staff into a snake? What about the God who said the word and people were instantly whole?

We can’t inherit the kingdom based on knowledge. We can’t inherit the kingdom without being like a child. We can’t let knowledge of how things usually go dictate our course of prayer and petition.

Nothings too hard for him. Tear off the roof.