I asked my 4-year-old grandson for the highlight of his day. He said, "Growing tobacco." Where he heard this, I'll never know. Here are other unfiltered thoughts from children:
Jeanie said, "People are composed of girls and boys, also men and women. Boys are an awful bother. They want everything they see except soap." Reminds me of the thief who stole 30 bars of soap. Forgive me, but he made a clean getaway.
A five-year-old was peeking into a baby carriage and saw twins. He said, "There's the baby-and there's the . . . co-baby."
Second-grade students were learning how magnets work, how they can pick up nails and other bits of iron. Their teacher stopped and asked, "Now, I want you to guess. My name begins with the letter 'M,' and I pick things up. What am I?" A little boy in the front said, "You're a mother."
A teenager was enjoying cotton candy at a fair. A kid squinted at him, then came over and offered some free advice. "My mommy said you shouldn't eat insulation."
Kids get mixed up about church history too. One wrote in an essay, "Martin Luther had a dream. He went to Washington and recited his Sermon on the Monument. Later, he nailed 95 Protestants in the Watergate Scandal."
Kids help us laugh, don't they?
In early January of 2020, I read an article: "20 Things That Bring Me Joy." The author said things like hugs, coffee with friends, an annual missions trip, dinner and a movie with friends, a neighbourhood barbeque, professional sports games, concerts, church, and swimming with grandkids.
As you know, COVID-19 hit a month later, rendering most of these activities obsolete, bringing heartache, and, at the very least, inconveniencing the most convenient culture ever. Some of the things that once brought us joy became impossible. Will we ever again take for granted a carful of friends, a jam-packed concert, an airplane conversation with a stranger, seeing a person's entire face? And yet, amid the turbulence, the hurts and the loss, we found joy.
For our family, it came from an unexpected source.
After mountains of red tape, countless hours of travel, and sleepless nights, our children adopted three of the cutest kids in world history, two of them after their mother's tragic death. They were four and five. They couldn't get enough of us-live and on FaceTime. Soon it hit me: their presence is a visible reminder of the grace God showed in adopting each of us into His family.
Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, 'Abba, Father.'"
This heavenly Father is our caregiver, comforting us when we're confused, holding us when we're horrified. He's not concerned with where we came from or what we've done in the past. As surely as these three children in our family have been given new names, so have we Christians. They are legally entitled to all the rights and privileges of biological children-all the love and piggy back rides and fridge visits of home-just as we are as members of the family of God.
Grace. God continues to lavish it on us. And we pass it along.
As I just did when my grandson said, "Grandpa, you're bald. You look very extinguished."
Phil Callaway is author of Laugh Like A Kid Again (Harvest House). Visit him at philcallaway.com.
