As you know I just came back from visiting my three year old
and five month old grandsons. I had so
much fun! There is so much difference
between how I was with my children and how I am as a Grammie. Maybe this whole idea of a second childhood
is at its best when it comes to playing with your grandchildren. I play with great abandon. I’m silly and spontaneous and inventive. I was never like that with my kids. When I found time to play, I remember it being
pretty unimaginative and regimented.
Maybe this had something to do with feeling the weight of responsibility
for teaching them something important in every activity. I don’t feel a bit of that weight with my
grandsons and I absolutely love the freedom.
I have also discovered that I am the one who is learning the
important things as I play with them.
Since little children have not yet become sophisticated at disguising
their human natures, I can clearly see myself and all of us in the way they
approach life. I have an example I
thought you would enjoy. My daughter was
playing an impromptu game of red-light-green-light with her three year
old. He would run until she said “red
light”, then he had to stop where he was and wait for her to say “green light”,
at which point he would run again. This
reminded them both of something they had done before which they enjoyed. They taped red, green and yellow pieces of
construction paper on the floor. The
idea was to start at a green square, run until you hit a yellow square, which
meant you had to slow down, and then finally come to a complete stop on a red
square. I could see that this game had
many practical applications. It taught
color recognition as well as the concept of traffic lights, and, it even taught
the importance of obeying the law.
The three year old was dispatched to fetch the construction
paper while my daughter got the tape. He
came back excitedly with a handful of colorful papers, including blue. My daughter proceeded to tape the green, red
and yellow “lights” at various intervals around the house, but my grandson
insisted that he wanted to tape the blue paper, too. My daughter patiently explained what each of
the colored “lights” represented and encouraged him to stick to just those
three. He was fine for a few minutes,
faithfully following the path and its instructions; running, slowing, stopping,
then running again. But soon he was
quiet and we saw that he was taping the blue “lights” to the floor. My daughter tried to reason with him, but he
was adamant, so she shook her head, shrugged her shoulders and let him
continue.
Soon my grandson was attempting to follow the path, but,
because even he didn’t know what he should do when he came to a blue square, he
lost focus and was soon just running aimlessly.
My daughter finally called out to him in a frustrated voice, “See; now
you are just running with total disregard for the law!”
I thought that was hilarious, but my daughter didn’t think
it was nearly as funny as I did. All I
could think was that we are all just like my grandson. God gave us the law, which, if learned and
followed, would make our lives so much simpler and more pleasant; but, we just
can’t do it. We insist on going our own
way, sticking in our blue meaningless squares, and once we have gotten our way
we lose all focus and are soon running in total disregard for the law.
The consequences of our actions have more of an eternal
significance, however, than those of my three year old grandson; so, knowing
that about us and loving us, God sent his son to follow all of the rules for
us, and then credited us with his perfect obedience. His son then took all of the punishment for
our willful disobedience, so that we would not have to. Such an unbelievable gift!
We come from the womb with
little rebel hearts, don’t we! It sure
is a good thing our Father loves us so much.
Love Always,
Bonnie
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