Scooters

This week my kids got a scooter. They are having a blast taking turns and riding around, learning a new skill that will not only bring them enjoyment but increase their gross motor abilities. (P.S. The heir enjoyed his scooter so much he assigned me to write about it). We'll soon have a second scooter so that they can play on their own, but for now they are having a lot of fun sharing.

Shopping for a scooter, however, was a different experience. Going to the Big Blue Store can sometimes introduce some worldliness into lives as we are surrounded by the Stuff our society depends us. We could have bought some really cool scooters, name brand ones that look really sharp, but did we really need that? We could have bought bikes and trikes, extra cool helmets with spikes sticking out of them, or ten thousand other cheap consumer goods we are tempted to buy.

In the world we've created for ourselves, we are often intent on possessing stuff just so others can see that we have it. We want the best and most of everything; unfortunately, in the scramble to possess the best of this and that, we often miss the values that will actually make us happier. Money, in the end, can buy a great many things in the world, but it can't buy the things we all need most. What we need to do is accept the simple gifts in our lives, learn to share, and enjoy learning some new skills.

These will not be the end to scooters, or bikes, or other toys, but I hope the attitude can stay. I hope my children will keep being pleased by the simple gifts in their lives, for it is the gifts that stretch and grow them that will be the longest lasting.

Renewals and Rebirths

Over the past five months, my family and I have had a great deal of change in our lives and routines.  I left for three months to attend training for a new day job, not knowing where in the country my new employer would assign me to work.  I received my assignment some weeks into my training, and we began the process of finding housing online.  After I completed my training, I returned to my family, we packed up our belongings, then drove across the country to our new state.  We lived in a hotel for over six weeks while purchasing a new home.  While in the hotel, we welcomed a new daughter into our family and I started my new job, which was significantly different than my old one.  We then closed on our house and moved in.

In short, in the past five months we went from a blue-collar family in a small apartment in a rural location to a white-collar family in a surprisingly huge house in a good-sized city.  New job, new child, new city, new state, new house, new socioeconomic status: change has occurred rapidly this summer.

This summer has taught me about the inevitability of change, and about how to interact with that change.  Many people say that change is constant, and in a way they are correct.  What they may infer may not be, but the underlying statement is true.

This is because of the nature of God's love for us.  Renewal, rebirth, resurrection; these are eternal truths.  God gives us the opportunity to remake ourselves, not just one time, two times, or seven times seventy times, but constantly.  We are invited to have fountains of living water spring up within us from God, that we might be healed and renewed.  Each trial we face, each blessing we receive, each twist and turn in our lives is an opportunity to receive of God's grace and follow His will.

But do we take these chances of rebirth and renewal seriously?  Do we see these opportunities in the correct light, or are we so put off by the change that we can't see the greater pattern behind it?

My family and I have understood the changes we have lived over the past summer as a rebirth, a way for the Lord to change us to become more as He would have us be.  Without the gospel's light, some might see only a meandering path in life's changes, not understanding that the twists and turns are actually switchbacks, and that there is a wondrous goal on the peak ahead.  

May we always look to God and accept the renewal in each change that He sends us.