Simple Things

It was our first time in the playground together. We held hands going down the slide. 

Then I pushed her in the swing. 

Even the sand box area had shovels and dump trucks for imaginative play. 

We walked across a small bridge to a wooden castle. She peered through the opening and looked at the kids outside.

I followed her toddler steps. But she soon left all the attractions of the play area and found a paved walkway. 

I’d have preferred the grass in case her quickly moving feet tripped, but she seemed to know she could go faster on the pavement.

Then something caught her eye. A string. She sat down and pulled it between her fingers and stretched her arms to extend it.

For the rest of our playtime, the string was her sole entertainment. I marveled at how the slide, swings, and a sweet castle hadn’t captured her attention. A string had.

She was still too young to appreciate real entertainment, like that wooden castle. As I watched her play with a string, I thought of how many things I overlook in my search for better entertainment. When was the last time I studied the intricacy of a flower like she does?

Then I realized that I’d just enjoyed the simplest of entertainment— watching my granddaughter play with a string. She's giving me a toddler's view of life. 

God finally found a way to slow me down long enough to appreciate the awesomeness of simple things in the simplest of ways. 

Neither of us can stop getting older, but we can choose to stop and play with the strings we find along the way.