Tonight my daughter, Ryanne, decided that she wanted to play teacher and that her stuffed animals (along with my wife, Angie) should be the class. Angie sat patiently as Ryanne instructed her in the finer points of things like counting pennies and coloring - it was a beautiful thing. Later she began playing her favorite game on the XBOX and, well... you can see it here. You gotta love the body english she employs.
Watching her live life without fear or reservations reminded me of a story I heard years ago...
When we are little, we love to draw pictures of all sorts of things. We draw castles and elephants and aliens and flowers and puppies and giraffes. We draw with crayons, markers, and chalk. And we use great colors like pinks and purples to bring our masterpieces to life. With as much excitement a little heart can hold, we bring our greatest creations to our moms who proudly display them on the refrigerator for all to see. Our families show off our handiwork on mugs, mousepads, and tshirts.
But then quietly and over time we stop bringing our pink and purple giraffes to mom.
Why did we stop?
Did mom stop loving our creations? Did she stop being proud of what we accomplished?
No.
We stop drawing because we either discovered that we "weren't as good as someone else" or someone told us we were not.
Slowly as we get older, other people's opinions (or our own of ourselves) squeezes the joy and creativity out of us until we forget how to experience the joys of playing and creating altogether. Some were meant to develop those joys into a lifelong passion while others were simply given an opportunity to enjoy being a kid.
But we were never meant to stop creating. We were never meant to stop enjoying life.
Our Heavenly Father is proud of the things we create. He loves to watch us live and love and learn. Just like earthly parents, He looks forward to His children bringing their best efforts to Him so that He can celebrate with us. His refrigerator is never too full.
Start drawing again. Start playing. Start living. Nothing makes your Father happier.
That was actually the third time I tried to video her - she kept catching me out of the corner of her eye and sat down. I had to wait until she forgot about me or until she got to a new level in the game that was too exciting to sit through. She's awesome!
Posted by: Mark Collier | December 19, 2007 at 05:58 AM
That is soo funny! Then she quit when she noticed you were taping, haha :)
Posted by: Callie Queck | December 18, 2007 at 09:43 PM