He was looking for his blue plastic whistle, the one that probably cost fifty cents at a dollar store. He wanted to sleep with it again. I paused to remember where I had seen it that day, where I had seen it last. “Is it out in the play house?” I asked him. His eyes lit up as he hopped out of bed.
I watched at the back door as his little bare feet padded through the grass. I smiled at the bounce in his step as he ran up the porch stairs of the little yellow play house. Suddenly I was young again. I felt myself as a four year old running through the lawn with one thing on my mind. And when he pushed open the red door that sticks when you first open it and stepped into the shadows it was me who was young and brave — brave enough to walk into the dark because I had one thing I wanted and because I knew Mom was standing back at the house watching me.
He stepped out of the shadows and lifted the whistle in triumph, and I returned to the present. His hair blew in the wind, and his smile reached from him to me and back again as he raced back even happier and bouncier than before. My mama heart stretched with a beautiful, aching love for this child of mine, his happiness so perfect in that moment. And my girl heart grew softer and a bit more free, reliving moments of childhood and rest. I was once young with a simple, free heart and Jesus came to make me that way again.
I just want to ‘like’ this post.
Oh, this is so wonderful. The kind that brings tears and smiles at once.
And a kind of wistfulness. A happy childhood is one of the loveliest things possible.
Yes. Sometimes I don’t know if I can give my children a happy childhood, but I can give them lots of happy moments, and I trust it will add up, by grace, to something good and beautiful.