I am at a personal crossroad in my life right now, and God's been teaching and confirming some things to me lately. I won't share all about that, but I did read a devotional yesterday that really spoke to my heart in a very strong way, probably more strongly than any message I've heard in a long while. We can get so busy with activities and work, and so preoccupied with what others think, that sometimes we miss God's true calling for our lives. Please share this with anyone who might be blessed by it!
Let The Children Laugh
Let the children laugh and be glad.
O my dear, they haven't long before the world asssaults them. Allow them genuine laughter now. Laugh with them, 'til tears run down your faces - 'til a memory of pure delight and precious relationship is established within them, indestructible, personal, and forever.
Soon enough they'll meet faces unreasonably enraged. Soon enough they'll be accused of things they did not do. Soon enough they will suffer guilt at the hands of powerful people who can't accept their own guilt and who must dump it, therefore, on the weak. In that day the children must be strengthened by self-confidence so they can resist the criticism of fools. But self-confidence begins in the experience of childhood.
So give your children (your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews, the dear ones, children of your neighbors and your community) - give them golden days, their own pure days, in which they are so clearly and dearly beloved that they believe in love and in their own particular worth when love shall seem in short supply hereafter. Give them laughter.
Observe each child with individual attention to learn what triggers the guileless laugh in each. Is it a story? A game? Certain family traditions? Excursions? Elaborate fantasies? Simple winks? What?
Do that thing.
Because the laughter that is so easy in childhood must echo its encouragement a long, long time. A lifetime.
-Walter Wangerin, Jr.
And now I'm going to get off this computer and get down on the floor to play with my kids.
Have a great day!
3 comments:
This is so true. It seems like I am finding out more and more as my children are growing up that the sweet and innocent years come and go way too quickly. Thanks for sharing this and your heart! :)
I like that and it's so true. It goes by so fast that if we are not careful, we will be standing there one day wondering what happened to that time. The few years that we have them to raise are really so short and that time is a gift.
I say to live your life with your children so that you have no regrets when you look back.
Enjoy your time playing on the floor! :-)
Thanks. I needed this.
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