Four Years Old

We just got home from spending most of last week with family and friends, camping on Rose Lake. It was hot, buggy, sticky, fishy, dirty, lazy, glorious fun. Leah was in the water swimming for the greater part of 4 days, and now she has a fantastic tan. Susie wore herself out so hard the first 24 hours that she fell asleep lakeside in Grammy's lap the second afternoon and slept straight through until the following morning. Upon waking after 18 or so hours of sleep, she announced, "I'm dried out and I need some breakfast!"

There were a whole bunch of cousins at the lake - adult cousins my age, and then all our kids making up the next generation of cousins, running around barefoot, hardly stopping long enough to get pants changed and sunscreen re-applied by a bevy of concerned aunts and mamas. I loved watching the kids play together. Kids just get it, most of the time, how to get along and play good. When they don't, it's usually because they're tired or hungry or both. Not because they're mean. Kids are so accepting of each other, and there are very few rules for engagement amongst them.

"How old are you?"

"I'm Four!"

"Me too!"

"Wanna play Tag You're It?"

"Yea-yeah!"

And that's all it takes. Fast friends. I wish it were as simple with grown-ups. :-)

I read a really good book while the kids chased each other around the lake. Love Does, by Bob Goff. You must read it. Really, you must. I read tons of books, and most of them say the same thing. This book is different. This book is wonderful!

Life is too short to waste, friends. We say things like this all the time as parents - "time goes by so fast, and the next thing you know, your kids are grown!" Well, guess what? Time goes by the same 'so fast' for adults, and the next thing you know, your parents are bowing out of this world and bowing into the next, your children are becoming parents of the next crew of little cousins, and you are in the middle of being an adult, and you have choices to make. To love extravagantly, or love cautiously, or to not love at all. To be generous with your time and talents, or to dole them out in carefully measured quantities to a select few, or to hoard them for yourself. To live fearless, courageously hitting each day head on with all you've got, or to do the bare minimum of what you have to do each day to get by, or to cower in fear of pain or betrayal or failure or disappointing others or being judged and just not do anything meaningful at all.

We all have choices to make.

And life is really, really short. We are not long here. Some of the things we get to do here make differences here. Some of the things we get to do here make differences for forever.

I want to make forever differences. I want to make forever choices. I want to love and live and serve and give in ways that last. I think we all do, really. And that is why we are so opposed by things like fear, anger, betrayal, judgement, guilt and failure. Because we are opposed. Incalculable good would come, for eternity, if we were not... if we didn't give in, if we didn't bow down to self, to what we are afraid of, to loss or death of any kind.

Four year old kids don't realize they have things to loose by striking up a friendship with another four year old kid. They don't worry about being judged, or looking good, or getting too close, or being thought of as anything negative. They just engage. They just play. They live. They love. They give their all. Yeah, they might get hit in the face with a life jacket, or they might fall and skin up their bottoms, but to them, it's not crippling, it's not the end of the friendship or the end of playtime or even the end of life. It's a temporary setback, a few tears, maybe a bandaid and a popsicle, and then game on!

Can I make an appeal? Can we all engage life like four year olds? I think we'd be a lot happier if we would.

Besides, there are 18 hour naps involved...

Cousins and Two of my Favorite Four Year Olds