Surrendering Through Childlike Dependence

A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Mark
     The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,
     "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?" 
     They were testing him.
     He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?" 
     They replied,
     "Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
     and dismiss her."
     But Jesus told them,
     "Because of the hardness of your hearts
     he wrote you this commandment. 
     But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 
     For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
     and be joined to his wife,
     and the two shall become one flesh.
     So they are no longer two but one flesh. 
     Therefore what God has joined together,
     no human being must separate." 
     In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. 
     He said to them,
     "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
     commits adultery against her;
     and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
     she commits adultery."
     And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
     but the disciples rebuked them.
     When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
     "Let the children come to me;
     do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
     such as these. 
     Amen, I say to you,
     whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
     will not enter it."
     Then he embraced them and blessed them,
     placing his hands on them.

     “Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” This can almost seem daunting, especially to us adults who have grown out of our childish ways. However, the Lord is not asking us to be childish but in fact the opposite. He wants us to recognize how we have grown and matured, but also desires for us to surrender to Him in all things like a child depends on its parents to take care of them. Reliance on the Lord in this way is where we are most pure. This is where we can be the most vulnerable; when all the walls have been broken down around us and He can see us for who we truly are. We do not have to put up a front and fix ourselves before going to Him. He wants us in our brokenness and our mess. He wants us in our childlike state of humanity where we can’t fully understand what is going on in our lives and turn toward a loving parent for guidance. When we can fully surrender in this childlike state,we are most free.

     I have experienced putting up different fronts before the Lord in attempts to make it seem as though I was okay. The first time I truly learned what full surrender looked like was when COVID first shut everything down in March of 2020. I had helped plan the Tiger Awakening retreat at Christ the King for that semester, and the weekend that Louisiana shutdown was when this retreat was supposed to happen. I was devastated since I had put in countless hours over a period of several months to get this retreat together. I felt as though my prayers for that retreat were not being heard and it was all for nothing. I struggled with this for several months, feeling frustrated and defeated. 

     The person that helped me to understand this surrender to the Father’s will was St. Therese of Lisieux. This beautiful woman, the little but fierce warrior, taught me so much. Before this retreat, I did not really know much about St. Therese and her “little way” of life. In some of us choosing to ask her to be a patron for that weekend retreat, I frequently asked for her intercession up through the original retreat weekend and continued to grow a relationship with her after it was cancelled. One of my favorite quotes from the Little Flower is when she is talking about finding the fastest way to heaven through an elevator instead of a staircase:

     “The elevator which must raise me to the heavens is Your arms, O Jesus! For that I do not need to grow; on the contrary, I must necessarily remain small, become smaller.”

     Therese realized that the Lord could do more through her when she remained small and childlike, surrendering everything in dependence upon Him like a child to its parents. This helped me to realize that the Lord must have a greater plan in store if the retreat was not supposed to happen. The Father eventually showed me the abundant fruit of my prayer and suffering, but it was not immediately apparent. She showed me that He will not leave me an orphan, that He hears me and provides for me even through the darkness.

     Therese is a model of how each one of us is called to enter into the kingdom of heaven with childlike wonder. May Therese show each one of us how the Lord is asking us to become smaller so that He can provide for us the abundant fruit that He so freely desires to give. In our littleness, may He become more visible to those around us. This week, ask yourself: What are the walls around your heart that need to be broken down in order for the Lord to enter? How can you more fully surrender to Him today? Let the Lord and St. Therese into this prayer, you won’t regret it.

     St. Therese, pray for us!


About the Author: Bailey Polson was born and raised in Baton Rouge and is a proud St. Joseph’s Academy alumna. When she graduated high school in 2016, she attended LSU and was very involved in ministry through Christ the King Catholic Church and Student Center. In August, she began her post-grad life with her new job: teaching social studies at St. Michael’s the Archangel High School. When she isn’t working, Bailey loves to encounter the Lord in music and in the Blessed Sacrament.
Who is your favorite saint at the moment and why? Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is who I’ve been asking for intercession for the past couple of months. I want to have adventures in the craziness of finishing grad school and preparing for the coming school year.
What was the 1st CD (or cassette if you’re old school) you remember listening to as a kid? I remember my sisters and I getting the CDs of the songs for Vacation Bible school each year. We would go home and sing/dance to the songs that we learned that day, and this lasted for weeks.
What book are you reading right now? “My Sisters the Saints” by Colleen Carroll Campbell
What is your favorite smell? Freshly cut grass or rain.

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The Well is a weekly reflection series from Red Stick Catholics that was created to allow young adults from the Diocese of Baton Rouge to reveal how God is speaking to them through prayer and Scripture. Each reflection contains the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel, a reflection written by a young adult from the Diocese of Baton Rouge and prompts for how to pray with the Gospel and reflection during the week. If you are interested in writing a reflection, please email Nicole at [email protected].