Lessons from Lexi: A study in joy

My daughter recently turned 20 months. While this age has its toddler moments of insanity, I am finding it a delightful age to parent. I also find that often times I learn more from her than she from me!

Sure, I’ve walked this earth by God’s grace for 39 years (don’t even mention my 40^th birthday coming up, ugh!) and Lexi’s walked it for…a little over one and a half years but she still has blessed me with some wonderful lessons of how to live in God’s grace every day.

Lesson 1: Beauty is not where you expect

My daughter loves flowers; loves to stop and see them, smell them, touch them. A walk into our church can take quite a while as she stops to admire each and every flower along the way. As winter approaches, most flowers have died and dried up. The pots and fields of flowers we do encounter in our travels are usually of the brown, withered, dried up, and, well, dead variety! Yet, Lexi stops with grace and awe at each one. She bends down to smell them, she looks up at me and says, “pwetty” and she takes such joy in God’s creation. At first, I wanted to pull her along and even started to say, “those are all gone, let’s go, nothing to see here.” I even chuckled at her toddler sense of aesthetics: dead flowers pretty?

Then the Spirit stopped me. Isn’t that how God sees us fallen humans? Are we always bright, blooming, healthy spring flowers? I can’t speak for you, but, no, I’m not! I sin. I fall into despair. I forget to talk to God. My soul , at times, feels like a brown, withered, dried up flower-but God sees me and all of you as “pwetty”. Beauty personified! What if we took this approach to the world as well? What if we learned to see beauty in people and things usually overlooked or dismissed by most people? What if we saw the beauty in the down trodden, sad new person in church-instead of ignoring them? What if we saw the “pwetty” in the harried cashier on our next trip to Shop-Rite? As the busyness of Christmas approaches, let’s all remember to “see the pwetty” and I think we will find life filled with more joy than we thought.

Lesson 2: Sometimes you just fall down.

Lexi has been walking since her first birthday, but, as a toddler, she sometimes overestimates what she can do. She’ll try to run or skip, jump or hop, climb something way too big for her or just perform something physical that she’s not capable of yet. Quite a few times throughout the day she trips or tumbles (gently!) off her chair. When this happens she says, “Go boom” very matter of factly, gets up, brushes off her hands and continues on with what she was doing. Falling down was just that: falling down. No shame or moral lessons attached to it. She fell. She got up. Life moves on. I challenge all of us to live like this! How often do we “fall”, whether that “fall” be a job loss, a bad hair day, a broken friendship, a bad presentation at work, a lost opportunity, an argument with a spouse/friend, or an actual, physical tumble? Probably more times than we want to admit. And how often, in these falls, do we feel embarrassment, we mutter “sorry” under our breath, we feel shame at our ineptness, we feel we are not enough. Falling becomes a reflection, and a bad one at that, on our very character. Let’s give that up, ladies! Let’s remember when we fall down to just realize, matter of factly, that we went “boom” and just get up and move on. Our mistakes are NOT who we are. We are washed clean by the blood of Jesus. When we “go boom” it is nothing more than a brief interruption in whatever we were doing. How much more joyful would our lives be if we could let go of our “my bad” moments!

Lesson 3: Sometimes a cup of water is truly a miracle

Since everything is so new to someone Lexi’s age, she tends to slow down and really see and appreciate life’s little moments. A new toy!! Really! If she were a dog, she’d be wagging her tail. Sometimes in the morning when I announce we are having oatmeal, one of her favorites, she runs to the kitchen, pumping her little arms in the air, chanting, “o-meal, o-meal!”

The other day after a snack and some time running around at a playdate, Lexi was thirsty. I didn’t have her sippy cup and so offered her something new: a drink of cold water out of a “grown up” cup with no straw and no lid. Her eyes got wide, her mouth opened in joy and she carefully and reverently drank all the water. Then she looked at me and said, “tank oo” and then gave a big, happy, “mmmmmmmm!” sound. Over water. That water was truly something to rejoice about!

I smile at these moments. My family and friends and I laugh at the great joy she takes in, of all things, oatmeal and water. How cute, we think, and then, “if only we could still be amazed at everything.”

Well, why can’t we? We have the joy of the Lord in our hearts and he graces each day with little moments of joy, we just have to start seeing them. Someone brought snacks in to work? Yay! When you get home after a long day, your slippers feel so soft and comfy? Rejoice! Let’s take the time to start taking joy in all that God gives us and stop waiting for something big and miraculous to bring us joy. Everyday life can be an “o-meal” moment!

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

1^st Peter 1:8-9