Alexandra

Sitting in our makeshift studio space She was contestant number four
Taking camera in hand I asked the question I had asked all afternoon
How does Jesus change your life?

Squirming and squinting
She shifted her small third-grade frame from one bony hip to the other
‘Well…’ she said ‘…well…’

It shames me to say I was counting each second
Waiting for the next oh-so-cute, incoherent comments
Of a child raised on vacation bible school and a cartoon version of Jesus

‘Well I was sick when I was a teeny, tiny baby
I was what you call a pre-eeemie…’

As she squealed forth ramblings of her parents’ plans
Regurgitated memories that weren’t her own
I contorted my face into bland curiosity
And began to long for the moment I could press the red button again
Until I could check off my list
The tiny blond whose face was more braces and glasses than skin
Edit her down to a sound-byte
Of ‘Jesus loves me’ and of ‘this I know’
Slap on the big screen an image of childish ignorance
Bask in the glow of high-def purity
To fulfill some fantasy
That we
Have the gift of laughing maturity
In my flawed perception of what she could, should and would be
I hoped at most for a small bit of quotable clarity
Is it too much to ask that you just say ‘God loves me’
And let us move on

But she
Had a story to tell
And in a room filled to the brim with my own high-minded ignorance
I almost missed her resurrection truth

‘When I was a teeny, tiny baby
I was what you call a pre-eeemie…
So how Jesus changed my liii-ife is…
He spared my life
He made me live’

In her small, tiny voice she declared the Gospel truth
‘He made me live'

In my premature, immature understanding of a God
Who looks like me
Talks like me
Who perceives, believes, and intercedes like me

I guess I am what you call a preemie
Bumping up against a glass partition
Fists clenched in empty air
On display for a world of disconnected observers
Unable to tell my own story
Lacking the language to shock my heart back into rhythm
I have grown small
Blind to the reality of my own resurrection

So God…
I come
Needs unspoken
Heart broken open
Looking for a childlike clarity
To stand tall, rooted in faithful frailty
To complete that which was started
In me, by You

In the name
Of Alexandra Vallieu
I proclaim:
I was a preemie
And how Jesus changed my life is
He spared my life
He made me live