Simple Pleasures

Do you know what really gets me feeling like a child? Snow.

It snowed last night. I don't know why it did. It seems this part of the country can't make up its mind what season it'd like to be. Winter? Summer? It doesn't know.

I was on my way out from my church's high school youth group meeting when I noticed how much it'd been coming down. I exchange a few friendly jokes and farewells, laughed at a friend who said he strongly dislikes the snow (he's from Texas), then proceeded to my car. I walked with face toward the sky and probably would have walked into something if it were in my way. Fortunately the path to my little gas-efficient Civic was clear. "I'm not from Texas," I thought to myself. "I love the snow."

Nothing puts me in a state of delight like the snow does. There is some childish mechanism that God has gracefully placed my adult soul that switches on whenever the air turns crisp and I get the feeling that icy crystals will soon cover the ground. I am forced to stop and appreciate the fluff falling around my face; and even just for a moment I am a little girl full of wonder and everything becomes a miracle again.

In Matthew 11:25, Jesus says, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

As an adult, I constantly battle arrogance, stubbornness, and too much seriousness. I find myself turning my nose up at things I once delighted in - thinking, "How childish!" But then the Holy Spirit convicts me, revealing to me that it is my own pride and jealously that causes me to react in such a way. And I am reminded that being childlike is a wonderful thing. It is a sad day when adults learn to no longer have fun, to delight in simple things, and even refuse to engage in childlike imagination. How beautiful it is when a full grown person can stoop down the level of a child and be filled once again with all the pleasures, wonders, and humility of childhood.