His grubby little fingers pulled piece after piece of bark from the tree; his little body focused and intent, nestled in the leaves amidst towering trees. Sunlight glowed warm on his soft hair, and he disappeared into his own private world, imagining, creating, exploring.
My middle child held my hand and balanced on fallen trees and searched under leaves for hidden treasures of acorns and bugs.
My oldest climbed logs and made forts, invented machines out of trees and sticks in her mind.
These woods held private worlds for each of my children to disappear into. They wove in and out of each others' imagined worlds and invited us in to play too. Together we wandered and dreamed and drank in the sunshine and the smiles and wonder.
Sometimes I wonder if adults can find wonder in the busyness and the weight of responsibilities. There are so many heavy things that lie on our hearts, and yet somewhere deep inside even grownups are desires and dreams and passions and imagination and wonder. Too often, those things are laid aside in favor of what needs to be done and what should be done. The sleepless nights caring for a baby and the dreary days doing mundane work in a job that sucks the wonder right out of life can often leave us grown people feeling wonder-less.
But recently, a tug in my heart keeps pulling on my imagination and asking, is wonder possible here in the midst of the sacred mundane? Can I find wonder while doing the dishes? Or can my imagination delight in possibilities unseen while still finding contentment in the duties of the here and now?
My heart has been wrestling with the question, "Can I live each day full of joy and wonder?"
And an echo in my soul says yes. Yes, I can wake to piles of laundry and children demanding food and needing diapers changed and beds cleaned and floors swept, and school to be taught. Children who need love and attention and nurturing and practical care and so much more, and the constant worry of "Am I doing this right?" And yes, somehow in there somewhere, I can find wonder and joy.
I'm tumbling along this journey, sometimes stumbling into wonder by chance and other days searching for it and finding it illusive. Perhaps wonder isn't something you can create; perhaps it must always be something you stumble upon. And yet, my little wonder experts show me that there is something we can do - no, we must do - if we are to wander into the garden of wonder.
As I watch them, I marvel at the ease with which they slip into imaginary worlds, and I follow them down that path to wondering. As I balance on the log behind my sweet Melody, I wonder to myself, "What will happen if I do a cartwheel? Can I do it?" I raise my arms in front of me and angle my body and throw myself into a wild turn and land, laughing on the ground next to the log, in unexpected laughter and dishevelment. Wonder, it returns slowly, like an once loved teddy bear feels in your arms after many neglected years. Can I live this way? How do I find this again?
I inhale the crisp air in my lungs and let the sun soak into my skin, turning towards the beauty and the light and taking time to savor the moment. I watch them play and learn from them, as they lead me back down paths in my heart I'd allowed to become overgrown.
My children have been leading me in this journey of wonder and I find the door to enter in is simply choosing to say yes. Saying "yes" to the people and the moment in front of me, rather than pushing it aside in my mind and choices in favor of that which is to come.
This new year has brought changes to my life, resolutions if you could call them that, and one is to say yes to my children as often as a I can; to say yes to the moments that will slip out of my fingers like running water if I don't just immerse myself in them and let the flow carry me off on wild adventures.
I don't mean this in a way that I won't tell them "no" to the things that are unhealthy for them or the boundaries they need to flourish, but I mean saying yes to them. When they run circles through the kitchen while I'm doing dishes, I want to join them instead of shooing them away so I can finish the job in front of me. When they jump on my laundry piles, I want to tickle them and laugh with them and bury them in piles of clean clothes and play peek-a-boo, rather than sending them off to play elsewhere. When they ask me to play dollies, I want to say "yes," even if it means setting down an important task at hand.
Wonder isn't such an illusive place, but perhaps it is difficult to find because it is a garden we can only see when our eyes aren't constantly looking elsewhere. Mankind's first step away from God was the moment when they believed that the moment in front of them was not enough and that there was something more they could attain for themselves.
Perhaps, if they had kept their eyes fixed on the wonder and the beauty all around them, they would have been too busy to fall into the trap of believing there was more they needed to pursue and get for themselves.
My children are not constantly thinking about the things that need to be achieved or accomplished - they are delightfully just living in the moment in front of them, embracing the people right in front of them.
CS Lewis wrote, "It is easier to be enthusiastic about humanity with a capital "H" than it is to love individual men and women..."
Perhaps that is the heart of missing out on wonder. As we constantly look towards doing big things and accomplishing great feats or even just keeping life afloat, we miss out on the wonder of just loving the person in front of us now. We miss out on living the life we have now.
We may be passionate about loving People, but it means very little if we don't actually embrace and throw ourselves fully into the act of loving the faces right in front of us. And while life certainly comes with pain and challenges, I believe we can look around and find wonder even in the midst of those things because we believe in a God who makes all things new and who gives us His vision of hope in a world that is full of pain and suffering.
As Christians, we have a secret weapon of hope through which we can see the pain in the world. We can look around us at the hardships and know that God will make all things new. We have the hope that death is just the beginning of something beautiful. We have the hope that people can be rescued out of addiction and depression and hopelessness by a God who loves them more than they could ever imagine. We have the hope that all the painful things we've experienced or will experience can be so beautifully redeemed by a loving Father that we need fear nothing and regret nothing. We have the promise that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, so we need not live in shame or fear or insecurity, but we may walk confidently in relationship with God and people.
These lenses give us the ability to look around us and see the world through eyes of wonder, marveling at what God has done and will do.
I don't want to miss the wonder of seeing my children's grubby hands in mine and laughing with them about the slippery wooden bridge we are crossing. I don't want to miss digging for worms in the mud right next to their little bodies. I don't want to miss snuggling in close to my husband as we watch our children play and hearing his heart beat beneath my ear. I don't want to miss these things because I'm too focused on the things that need doing or the worries and plans for the future.
That day as I scampered the forest trails with my precious people, I realized wonder had been there all along; I simply didn't have the eyes to see it. I'm learning, slowly, that wonder comes when we are willing to shift where we are looking. So I'm determined to begin looking around, instead of just forward, and seeing what is right in front of my eyes and loving there. I'm praying for eyes to see not just responsibilities, but people, and a willingness to set aside that which must be done for the future in favor of that which already is.
Wonder is found by looking around and not just simply moving forward. It is seeing the beauty that already is and marveling in each detail, entering fully into each precious second of life we've been given.
May we all find wonder again and rediscover the beauty of seeing clearly the gifts that are right in front of our eyes.
Posts
