I was trying to look at the Deutsche Bahn (train) website for my upcoming travels, and Cole was playing all sorts of games with me -- variations on tag and hide and seek that involved lots of belly laughing and diving into my lap. How could I resist putting the old Deutsche Bahn aside and taking every moment that Cole wanted to give me?
The dinner table is not usually a relaxed, lingering place when you are eating with three children under the age of five, but tonight after Lilah finished she sat snuggling in my lap, and then Claire finished and brought a book to the table to look at. Lilah began talking about Emilius, some imaginary friend whose world became steadily more defined and colorful with each question I asked Lilah.
Claire found the page she was looking for; she had asked me during dinner if God sometimes punished people by sending them to the desert, and I said I didn't think so. I asked her where she had heard that, and she told me I had read her a story about it. I could not remember the story. I had also forgotten about our dinnertime conversation when suddenly, she was on the page in her Bible picture book where the Israelites are in the desert, unable to enter Canaan because of -- guess what? -- their disobedience. "And are they in the desert now?" asked Claire. "Why did they have to stay in the desert?" It wasn't till the answer was coming out of my mouth that I realized this was the story she had been talking about, and she had brought the book to the table so she could find this story and get the answer to her question! Her next question: "Then why doesn't God send us to the desert when we disobey?"
Sara Groves says it well:
I am long in stayingEvery Minute
I am slow to leave
Especially when it comes to you, my friend.
You have taught me to slow down and to prop up my feet
It's the fine art of being who I am.
. . .
And at the risk of wearing out my welcome
At the risk of self discovery
I'll take every moment and every minute that you give me.
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