On a standard IQ test, my score fell around 129.

(Yes, dear teachers, I realize I threw away a lot of high school potential.)

But on that “street smart” scale, I definitely fell way below average.

Ironic, as I thought I was so BAD and knew it all.

I knew nothing.

I blamed this naivety on my descent into drugs and alcohol. If I hadn’t been so stupid I might not have believed that you became popular and made the cheerleading squad by having sex. It was an innocent question asked by a thirteen year old girl to the wrong people.

I hated that I’d been duped so easily and put up a Fort Knox-style wall to keep anyone from destroying me like that again.

It didn’t change that I was still fairly innocent.

I was often laughed at as a young adult when I’d make ditzy comments. Blaming it on the blonde hair, I’d inwardly cringe as I realized how stupid I once again sounded.

My mind just didn’t get things and I was often accused of wearing rose-colored glasses because I didn’t want to see reality.

But that WAS how I saw reality.

Through the eyes of an innocent child.

That’s how I am able to see the hurting child inside the grown addict or weathered homeless face.

It’s how I can still see hope in a lost and dying world.

It’s how I can fall in love with Jesus each and every day, no matter what has happened.

It’s how I know that there’s joy even in the midst of tragedy.

I realized that I’d not only stopped lamenting this character trait but had truly embraced it last year as we were traveling down the highway.

My husband was driving and as we passed a flatbed full of chicken crates, I made eye contact with one of the chickens.

Was he cold? Did the wind bother him? Where was he going? There were a lot of them. Some farmer must have bought a bunch of chickens for his farm, I decided.

“Look, Dale,” I said. “Those chickens are going to a new farm.” I was excited for them.

He looked at me strangely and mumbled, “They’re going to a new farm, all right.”

I didn’t need a high IQ to understand what he was saying.

I was horrified. (And on the verge of becoming a vegetarian.)

As usual, I immediately started wondering how I could’ve been so dumb.

But this time was different.

I was glad I’d seen it differently. Innocently.

I thought Satan had taken my innocence away when I was a young child.

But he couldn’t.

This is how God made me.