The Sandbox

In the aftermath of Easter weekend, the staff at our church was granted an unexpected and completely guilt-free day off from work; it was awesome.

I spent the day hanging out with my boys, catching up on household forgottens, and just recharging my batteries in general.

Towards the end of the day I took my little guy to the local park, something we haven't done in a while because of the weather. It was rather sunny that day and he wouldn't keep his hat or sunglasses on so I took him beneath the mecca of slides and plopped down in the sand with him.

We sat there playing with the sand, cupping it up in our hands and letting it slip through our fingers onto our skin, clothes, even hair. At one point I took the little toy boat he was playing with, dug a big hole in the sand, dropped it inside and covered it with a mound of sand. His mouth dropped open, he looked up at me with THE saddest face you've ever seen and tears immediately sprung to his eyes. I was surprised, certainly not the response I expected.

I quickly pushed back the sand and dug up the 'lost' toy, handing it back to him. He looked at it, then the sand, then me, and let out this deep chuckle like, "Well, look at that!" before putting the boat back in the hole and sprinkling sand on top. For the next half hour we buried and unburied the boat, our hands, our feet, our shoes and everything else we could find.

That night as I gave him a bath and tried to rid his hair and skin of the remaining sand, it occurred to me that teaching him that unseen does not equal not present would one day help him better understand God. As I rinsed the soapy bubbles from his soft little curls I thought about all of the lessons he had yet to learn and about the ways I could use even the simple things to testify to my son about my Heavenly Father. Who knew a lazy afternoon in the sandbox would be the first of many God lessons for us both?

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Deuteronomy 11:18-19

Your thoughts?