04/10/2026
LESSONS FROM MY NIECE
PART I: A LETTER FROM A LITTLE LIFE
Dear Niece,
You do not know it yet, but you have been teaching me.
You have been teaching me without saying a word.
You have been teaching me simply by being a child.
I watch you sometimes and wonder how someone so small can demand so much attention. You cry when you are hungry. You cry when you are uncomfortable. You cry when you want to be held. You cry when you want something but do not have the words to explain what it is.
And somehow, your mother keeps learning your language.
She learns your cries.
She learns your moods.
She learns when you are hungry, when you are tired, when something is wrong, and when you simply want to be held.
You do not know how much she has learned about you.
You simply reach for her.
And she responds.
Sometimes I watch her clean you, dress you, and settle you down, only to find you making another mess a few moments later.
I smile.
Sometimes I laugh.
Sometimes I wonder how much patience a person can have.
But then I stop laughing.
Because somewhere between your innocence and your dependence, I see myself.
I see humanity.
I see the strange condition of the human heart.
We are much older than you, but perhaps not as mature as we imagine ourselves to be.
We have learned how to speak, but not always how to speak with kindness.
We have learned how to walk, but not always where to walk.
We have learned how to reason, but not always how to love.
We have learned how to build lives, careers, churches, reputations, and names, yet we still struggle with the simplest lessons of character.
And perhaps this is why watching you has humbled me.
You do not pretend to be independent.
You know that you need someone.
You reach for your mother because you know, even without understanding it, that she is your refuge.
We are different.
We often spend our lives trying to prove that we need nobody.
We call it strength.
Sometimes it is pride wearing a respectable name.
You have no problem being carried.
We do.
You have no problem reaching out your hands.
We do.
You do not feel ashamed when someone cleans you.
We sometimes hide our dirt because we are more concerned about appearing clean than actually becoming clean.
And that is one of the lessons you have given me.
LESSON ONE: DEPENDENCE IS NOT WEAKNESS
You have taught me that needing someone is not a defect.
You are dependent, and there is nothing shameful about it.
In fact, your dependence is what allows you to receive.
You cannot feed yourself yet, so someone feeds you.
You cannot clean yourself, so someone cleans you.
You cannot protect yourself, so someone protects you.
You cannot carry yourself everywhere, so someone carries you.
And perhaps this is what we have forgotten.
We were never created to live independently of God.
Dependence was not part of the Fall.
Dependence was part of creation.
The tragedy is not that we need God.
The tragedy is that we sometimes imagine we do not.
LESSON TWO: LOVE OFTEN SERVES WITHOUT APPLAUSE
I have watched your mother do things for you that you cannot thank her for.
She cleans you when you cannot appreciate it.
She carries you when you cannot recognize the effort.
She stays awake when you sleep peacefully.
She gives, even when you cannot give anything back.
That is love.
Real love does not always wait for appreciation.
Sometimes love serves in silence.
Sometimes love cleans the mess nobody else wants to touch.
Sometimes love gives without receiving a thank-you.
And the older I become, the more I realize that some of the greatest acts of love happening around us are the ones nobody applauds.
LESSON THREE: IMMATURITY DOES NOT CANCEL LOVE
You are immature.
That is not an insult.
It is simply the truth.
You are supposed to be.
You are growing.
You are learning.
You are becoming.
Your mother does not despise you because you are not yet everything you will become.
She loves you in the middle of your becoming.
That has taught me something about God.
Perhaps we sometimes think God is waiting for us to become mature before He can love us.
But God does not love the finished version of us.
He loves us while He is forming us.
He sees what we are, but He also sees what we can become.
He does not confuse our present condition with our final identity.
That is grace.
LESSON FOUR: BE CAREFUL WHOSE LABOUR YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED
You do not know what it costs to care for you.
And I do not blame you.
You are too young to understand.
But I wonder how often I have been like you.
How many blessings have I received without noticing the hands behind them?
How many prayers have been prayed for me that I never heard?
How many sacrifices have been made for me that I never knew?
How many people have carried burdens so that I could walk freely?
And how many times has God sustained me while I went about my life assuming that everything was simply normal?
Perhaps gratitude begins when we become conscious of what we have been receiving all along.
LESSON FIVE: GROWING UP SHOULD MAKE US MORE CONSIDERATE
You laugh when others are tired because you do not yet know what tiredness means.
You demand attention because you do not yet understand that other people have needs too.
You make a mess because you do not yet understand the labour required to clean it.
That is acceptable in a child.
But one day, you will grow.
And when you do, I hope you learn something more beautiful than simply becoming independent.
I hope you become considerate.
I hope you learn that other people carry burdens too.
I hope you learn that love is not simply receiving care but becoming someone who cares.
I hope you learn that maturity is not simply getting older.
It is becoming increasingly aware of how your existence affects the people around you.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons for all of us.
Growing older is automatic.
Growing up is not.
LESSON SIX: GRACE SHOULD MAKE US GRATEFUL, NOT CARELESS
There is something dangerous about being loved so consistently that we begin to take love for granted.
Your mother cleans you because she loves you.
But imagine if, when you grow older, you deliberately made the same mess simply because you knew she would clean it.
That would no longer be innocence.
That would be presumption.
And perhaps that is where grace becomes serious.
God's patience should never become an excuse for our carelessness.
His mercy should not make us comfortable with sin.
His forgiveness should not make us indifferent to transformation.
Grace cleans us because God loves us.
But the same grace that cleans us also teaches us how to live differently.
LESSON SEVEN: ONE DAY, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
This may be the lesson I keep thinking about most.
One day, you will understand.
One day you will realize that your mother did more for you than you knew.
You will understand the nights.
The cleaning.
The carrying.
The patience.
The sacrifices.
You will understand that some things you considered ordinary were actually extraordinary expressions of love.
And perhaps that is true of us and God.
There are things happening in our lives right now that we do not understand.
There are mercies we call ordinary because we have never seen what they cost.
There are prayers God answered by protecting us from things we never knew were coming.
There are times He carried us and we thought we were walking.
There are times He cleaned us while we were still unaware of how dirty we had become.
One day, perhaps, we will understand.
And when we do, I hope our response will not be, "How much God did for me."
I hope it will be, “How deeply God loved me.”
So, little niece, keep growing.
Keep learning.
Keep reaching for your mother.
Keep laughing.
Keep discovering this strange and beautiful world.
But as you grow, I hope you never lose the lesson your little life has already taught me:
We all need someone to carry us.
We all need someone to clean us.
We all need someone patient enough to love us while we are still becoming.
And ultimately, we all need God.
Because perhaps maturity is not the day we finally stop needing to be carried.
Perhaps maturity is the day we finally become humble enough to admit that we always were.
