What’s the key?

I have this necklace that all three of my girls love. They all want me to put in our will who can have it when I die.

I mean, really?

It’s a $10 necklace. [smile]

It has four keys on it and I like it but…wow, I’m not asking my momma to put it in the will for me!

Then yesterday, my Kennedy, who is just seems to be having a rough “season” [I seem to be in denial…let’s just get real, this is a rough LIFE with this child] was sitting on my lap and started to play with this necklace.

She’s my deep thinker.

She’s definitely a 5-year-old guru.

Seems to  know EVERYTHING. [And don’t tell her differently]

Don’t drive another way home because she will call you out on it.

And don’t think for one second there is any sneaking of chocolate in this house.

SHE WILL KNOW.

And, SHE WILL WANT SOME.

I think what I’m trying to get at is…Kennedy is very AWARE, of everything.

Sorry, I really didn’t mean to go off on that tangent.

Back to the necklace.

As she was sitting on my lap, she grabbed hold of the necklace and started to count the keys on it…one…two…three…four.

“Mommy, why are there four keys?”

“Well sweets, that’s just the way they made the necklace.”

“BUT Mommy, WHY are there FOUR keys?”

Feeling frustrated with her endless desire to have a fulfilling answer to the question, I tried to reiterate my “just how it is” response.

She was not satisfied. At. All.

So she did what all five-year-old guru’s do –she made up her own answer.

Kennedy took the keys and pressing the key into my chest. It hurt!

So I gently did it back to her.

She started giggling and said, “I dink [think] God is opening YOUR heart. FOUR TIMES.”

“My heart? Sure you don’t mean YOUR heart? You are the one who seems to be in time out every 2.5 minutes in this house.”

She giggled some more and said, “Nope.”

Then, just as quickly as she was interested in the four-key-necklace, she was bored with it. Off she went to torture play with her Barbie dolls.

This morning I was reading in Colossians and I came across this verse:

He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge. -Colossians 2:3 [GNT]

I started thinking back to the key necklace. The prophetic words from the five-year-old.

Four things? What could she mean by that?

And then…I got it.

There are four very specific things I have been praying like a juggernaut for lately.

I feel like each of the answers are so close. So close, I can taste it. Yet so far, I still can’t reach it.

The truth is, maybe my heart has been closed. It’s gotten a little raw in there. I’ve learned to cope with the hurt and cope with the disappointment, but keeping my heart open?

That has been difficult.

Colossians 2:3 points us back to the mystery of God:

-His wisdom and knowledge is a treasure.

-His ways are not always obvious.

-But Jesus is the key.

So today, I am challenged to keep my heart open.

As God continues to unlock each corner of our souls, [the deep places where no one goes but him], we will have more wisdom to seek the hidden treasures he has for our life.

When Kennedy was pressing on my chest so hard it hurt, it may feel the same as God begins to press on our souls.

The pain, the suffering, the hard days…not such a good feeling.

It is all apart of the process.

The hidden treasures God has for your life will not be easy to unlock but even this is possible.

Four ideas to help this process of unlocking our hearts towards God:

1. Trust God but don’t live in denial.

2. Don’t define yourself by your limitations.

3. Sometimes our greatest frustrations are doing things that God hasn’t asked us to do in the first place. Ask him for your portion each day. And to the rest of life? Just say, “No.”

4. Just keep moving towards the presence of God. Don’t stop, pause or quit. Keep moving forward.

Above all: The key is to be open to Christ.