Children's conversations

I saw the small Child sitting on the wall by his mother's house in the sun-bleached hill village, in the shade of a fig tree.

'Will you be my friend?' he said.

I nodded. He smiled, and beckoned to me to come and sit beside him on his wall. We sat there for a while, not talking, just looking around together at the village going about its day.

'My mother is making raisin bread,' he said. 'If we go inside she will give us raisins.' We slid off the wall and crept into the kitchen, where his mother was at the table, kneading dough. We stood on our toes and peered over the edge of the table. She had a basin of raisins.

'This is my friend,' he told her.

She looked up and nodded. 'I know. And I know what you and your little friend want.' She smiled as she scooped up two handfuls of raisins and dropped them into our outstretched hands. We ran out, triumphant and laughing, and got back up on the wall. We munched his mother's raisins amicably and carried on watching the village going about its business.

We were firm friends after that.

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Later, not looking at me, he asks: 'Will you go away?'

Shock. He's my friend! How could he ask this? And how could I do this to Him?

But I do.

And when I return, broken and worried, there he will be, sitting on the wall, waiting. For me. And he will offer me more of his mother's raisins, still in His hand.

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'If you go away, I shall come looking for you, and bring you home. But only if you want to come. I shall carry you on my shoulders like a shepherd with his little lamb when it's lost and he finds it crying alone in a ravine.'

'You are too small to carry me.'

'Now I am, but I shall be big, then.'

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'It will not always be happy like now. When I am grown up, I think it may be horrible. But not at first. I will go everywhere, and I shall have new friends. Will you come with me and be one of my friends, when we're grown up and I have to leave home?'

'What about your mother?'

'She knows I will have to go. She always knows. Mothers do. It will be hard for her when I go. But she will come to meet me often, and I shall come home to her when I can. And bring my friends. She will make raisin bread for us!'

'She will cry when life is horrible to you.'

'Yes, but inside she will know that everything will be all right. She has me and my Father in her heart always. We will never let her go, and she will never let us go. Even when I leave never to come back, not as I am now anyway, she will have my Spirit in her heart and she will be peaceful. I will never leave her. Never. I will never leave you alone without me, either. Never. So will you come with me when I am a man and have to go away? Will you?'