On Growing Up Fully Alive

Image by Ted Kerwin
Flickr,com_photos/tedkerwin/4244725464

My two middle grandchildren started preschool this week. While I'm excited for this milestone, deep down my heart wants to wrap them up and put them on a shelf for safe-keeping. But that's impossible and it wouldn't be fair to them (or us or the world, for that fact), if stopping time were actually an option.

There's just something about their innocence, their childish giggles and freely-given embraces that I want to keep around forever. They face each new day fully alive, anticipating new experiences looking at all things as if it was brand new and I don't want that to change in them.

In Madeleine L'Engle's devotional, Glimpses of Grace, she quotes a passage from Meet the Austins on family comforts:

"Johnny said, 'Why do people have to ... grow up and get married, and everybody grow away from each other? I wish we could just go on being exactly the way we are!'