Madeline's Song, Jewel's prayer

My jewel is learning to pray. When we sit down for a meal, or it is time for bed, or I just want to pray with her for a while, we sit together and she folds her hands, bowing her head. And then she says, "I'll pray!" To which I respond, "ok, we'll take turns." And then she proceeds to pray in her own way. She prays for everyone she can think of - her parents, her grandparents, aunts, and uncles, friends. If she can remember their name, nobody gets left out. Except for one exception - herself. My jewel never prays for herself, only that her family and friends would be blessed. She doesn't realize what she is saying, in the larger context. But I do. She is acting in accordance with Romans 8:26-27:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The revelation of listening to her pray reminds me of the late Rich Mullins' song about a little girl born with serious physical disability, "Madeline's Song."

Madeline fusses and Madeline laughs
The angel who watches says "Hey look at that"
There's your faith mountains will shake
Cuz God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

Madeline stretches and Madeline kicks
The angels in heaven say "Hey look at this"
There's your faith mountains will shake
Cuz God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

And the only angels that I've ever seen
Look like tears on the face of the sky
Though it sure breaks your heart to see heaven all streaked up
With sorrows like theirs still you know all the while
From where cobbles shine golden like emeralds shine green
From where gems stud the streets and the walls
God looks out a window at us just to see
If anything frail as a sparrow should fall

Madeline fusses and Madeline laughs
The angel who watches says "Hey look at that"
There's your faith (there's your faith)
mountains will shake (mountains will shake)
God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

What a powerful, intimate, and tender image - that the God of the universe, creator of all, and the salvation of the world, would bend in joy to hear the voice of the tiniest intercessor, simply because He delights in it.

I know the implications of trying to discern my jewel's spiritual fate in Christ. Yet I am not undeterred in listening to her pray her simple prayer, or the significance of it, because of Luke 18:15-17:

Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

Even the infants could come to Jesus and be blessed. I don't know when my jewel might come to know the saving grace of Jesus, but it is MY prayer that her prayers to Him now might be a marker to show that she too has been bought at a price. (1 Corin. 6:20)