Magic.

Oz. Narnia. Wonderland. Never-Never Land. Consider our myths and fairytales, and you’ll see immediately that we humans crave magic. A deep, long-lost part of us must believe in it: decade after decade we teach these stories to our children. At a young age, we learn that if you shove aside the coats in your armoire, you will walk straight into a snowy kingdom where all your courage will be needed to fight the White Queen. Or that if a tornado strikes your house, you will land on a yellow brick road that takes you to the Wizard. Or that if you fall through a hole after being hurried there by a rabbit, you will find yourself in the midst of an epic battle between kindness and jealousy. Courage and magic intertwine at the core of our favorite childhood stories. My own favorite story, Charlotte’s Web, relies on the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief in farm animals’ ability to converse.

How does it happen that gradually such belief fades? Last month my three-year-old niece told me about a pink-and-blue tent she received for her birthday. When I asked her favorite thing about it, she replied, “Probably the lift-up door because I can lift it up and see what’s going on in there so I know if I want to play in it or go somewhere else with Mommy.” While I’m sure my niece knows that whatever might be “going on in there” is strictly her imagination, I’m betting she’d be an easy sell on all things magical. After all, to the young brain, both Santa Claus and rainbows are magical. How did exactly the toys you wanted appear under the tree sometime during the night on Christmas Eve? Somehow Santa must’ve done it. How does light shooting through suspended water droplets cause a bursting forth of colors in the same order every single time? Somehow God must’ve done it.

When it comes to faith, instead of harboring a childlike willingness to believe in magic, we enter into these ridiculous adult arguments about old earth versus new earth, or literal versus figurative. Those conversations might be enjoyable or even faith-building to some, but when they split friendships and churches—as they often do—something is wrong. Consider the words of Jesus in the Book of Mark: Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it (Mark 10:14b-15, NLT). Can you imagine children arguing whether Jesus turned water into wine or grape juice? Whether the Flood actually killed everything except that which was literally on the ark? Kids eat up Bible stories: they’re pure magic. You hear a lot more cries of “Cool!” than snorts of “This is obviously not meant to be taken literally” when you teach children’s Sunday school. And clearly, this is what Jesus is after—unbridled enthusiasm and belief in all things magically God. Luckily for most of us, Jesus doesn’t say, “Anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a theologian will never enter it.”

Am I taking issue with the discipline of theology? Certainly not. Am I suggesting that all sophisticated and/or inquiry-driven considerations of God should be quashed? Not at all. But I do wonder why we can’t go back to our child selves and be willing to accept a little more magic at face value. A fourteen-year-old Middle Eastern girl who’d never had sex in gave birth to God’s child? Let’s just go with it. As we’ve learned from the oft-quoted passage, Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). What is that if not a definition of believing in magic? So what if we can’t see God? Let’s just believe he’s there. We’ve never seen the wind or Neptune either, and we believe they’re out there. Maybe it’s time to peek back in that armoire with the children and see what they teach us about God.

Rainbows.

So when…I'm all by myself / And I can't hear You answer my cries for help / I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through / And I will go through the valley if You want me to.

— “If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens

I didn’t grow up in a Christian denomination that spoke much about grace. Instead, sermons of sin, God’s displeasure, and the weakness of humans abounded. Once, a pastor informed my youth group that there was a specific formula one must follow when praying: God wouldn't listen otherwise. An evangelist who came to my church when I was barely a teenager suggested that those who weren’t filled with the Spirit might not be saved, and the only way to be sure you’d been filled with the Spirit was whether you’d spoken in tongues. For this reason and others, I grew up doubting the grace of God as frequently as I went to bed at night—and if I were being honest with myself, I’d have to say that I still sometimes have relapses. Every night for years and years, I prayed the sinner’s prayer just in case Jesus came back in the night. I wanted to cover my bases in case the last 24,591 sinner’s prayers didn’t take.

It’s no great surprise, then, that when I was eighteen years old, I was sure that God had revoked my salvation privileges forever. Looking back over my life, there were lots of things I regretted thinking or doing—from saying disrespectful things to my parents to making fun of people at school. Drugs, alcohol, and sex—the trinity of Big Sins—might never have tempted me, but there was still an undeniable sinfulness at my core. I kept praying words like, “I know You’re probably not listening anymore, but even if I can’t be saved, I’ll still try to live like I am. I still believe in You, and I’ll try to send others Your way. I’m just sorry I’ve screwed up so often, and this relationship didn’t work out any better.”

I remember praying exactly that way as my family drove to my aunt’s house one Friday afternoon. I was feeling especially bold that day, and asked God if he wouldn’t mind sending me a sign if in fact I hadn’t quite used up my grace allotment yet. “I know I’m probably overstepping the bounds here a little,” I whispered tentatively, “but if there’s still a little grace with my name on it, would you let me know?” I fell asleep, praying that prayer over and over. When I woke up from my nap, I swear the first thing I saw was a rainbow. Now, a rainbow might not mean much to you, but here’s what it says about them in Genesis: Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds…When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and…when I see [it], I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth” (Genesis 9:12-14, 16, NLT). So every time God sees a rainbow, he remembers his covenant with us: he has guaranteed us love, grace, and protection from the perils of life on earth. It only seems fitting that if that’s what’s on God’s mind when he sees a rainbow, the same can be true of me. I spent the next several moments in the car contemplating the mercy of God…until I began talking myself out of the message. “Mercy for others, but no longer for me,” I reminded myself, frustrated that I’d been swept away by the magic of nature. “God is merciful to those who have more self-control than I have and can keep themselves from sinning.”

A few months later, it was January of 2003, and I was in a church service with my then-boyfriend. I don’t remember what the minister preached about that morning, but I do remember the overpowering urge to ask for prayer. I was still struggling (privately) with the feeling of being outside the bounds of salvation, but that rainbow had sent a tiny ray of light into my being, causing me to question if all really was lost. Almost immediately after I walked up to the altar, a woman joined me and began praying for me, praying all the things I wanted to say but didn’t feel that I could. Without ever asking why I was at the altar, she told me that God found me beautiful, treasured, and even holy. She told me that God did not take kindly to his children being terrorized by Satan’s lies. She told me that God roars like a lion against anyone who bullies, mistreats, or harms one of his own. She told me that I was precious and forgiven…and I believed her. I finally believed that I was still accepted and that God was welcoming me to his side. My body crumbled to the floor, and for a long time I sat in the presence of the Lord, letting grace and peace flood me. I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus…

That night I ate dinner at my boyfriend’s house, and then we all took our regular spots in the sunroom. His mom sat on a wicker chair in the corner, and he and I settled onto a glider. In moments, the sun was setting in the most unbelievable way: the sunset was quite literally a gigantic rainbow that spanned the entire sky. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet…they were all there in order as the sun slipped below the horizon. We marveled; none of us had seen a sunset like that ever before. (And while I can’t speak for them, I can say that I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since.) Remember? I heard the word echoing somewhere within me. Remember? God reminded me that we had a covenant, he and I. He’d painted both rainbows—skywriting, really—to remind me of the immense love he harbors for me. If I hadn’t already believed that God had power even over the colors of the sunset, I certainly did then.

Ever since, I have sought rainbows. Although, I usually don’t even have to: if I am going through a trying time, if something is weighing heavily on my mind, a rainbow will inevitably appear. God always reminds me of his ultimate control over the situation and of my privileged place in his family. Just yesterday I tearfully returned to my apartment in Virginia after spending a fabulous week of respite at home. I begged the Lord to tell me why I’m having to go through this—being away from home, family, and friends—in order to get a degree I’ve fallen out of love with. He didn’t answer, but did send a rainbow to meet me along the interstate. I love you more than words can express, remember?