My mother, always the perfectionist. My father, the workaholic. My mom worked as a school teacher and also kept an immaculate house. “Everything has a place,” she would say. I don’t disagree, but perhaps it works so well for me because if I don’t put things where they belong, I can’t seem to remember where I put them at all.  None the less, she was very particular about her home. Shoes were left at the door when entering.  Dishes were not allowed left in the sink. If I had a dollar for every time I heard her say, “Rinse and load” when we got up from the dinner table, I’d be a rich woman.

One weekend my five-year-old daughter and I were visiting. Becca was one of those kids that needed to be busy all the time. This particular trip we brought with us a bucket of sidewalk chalk for Becca to use on the patio.  My parents’ home had a huge patio area off the kitchen that was a wonderful, safe, place for Becca to play. We knew she would love to write and draw on the concrete just outside the kitchen door. I was a little concerned the chalk might bother my mom, as she kept the patio just as clean as she kept her home.  However, she assured me she didn’t mind a little “decorating.” I promised to wash it off before we left for home Sunday afternoon, and all was well.

I’m here to tell you it is incredible how much chalk a five-year-old can lay on a patio in a weekend. By Sunday afternoon that patio was a serious piece of art. It was covered in pink, blue, purple, yellow, and green sidewalk chalk. There were rainbows, flowers, smiling sunshine faces, stars, tic-tac-toe games, and whatever else Becca could think of when she was going through her bucket of chalk. She had been happy and busy all weekend.

As we were packing up the car, just about ready to head home, I glanced outside the kitchen window. I had almost forgotten to wash off the chalk before we left. I didn’t want my mom to have to do it, so I headed outside to give it a quick rinse before we took off. As I stepped out the door and turned on the hose, my mother came running out the door. “No, no. Leave it. Leave it there!” She said. I was confused at first. I thought she didn’t want me to unwind the perfectly wound hose neatly stacked under the facet. “It’s ok. I’ll put it back.” I said over my shoulder. “No!” She said. “The chalk. The artwork. Leave it there.” I turned off the hose and turned to look at her, totally confused.   She wanted me to leave the artwork there. She said the rain would eventually wash it away, but until then she wanted me to leave it there, just outside the window so that she could see it.   Somehow something that was always viewed as a mess or an inconvenience had turned into something precious and irreplaceable.

It made me think about the things in our lives that are irreplaceable and how often we don’t pay attention to them until they’re washed away. We get so caught up with our everyday lives that it’s easy to take for granted or ignore those things that positively impact our lives.   Why are we not more intentional about protecting the things that are important to us? Perhaps we need to calculate the cost of our complacency. What is in our lives today may not be in our lives tomorrow.

James 1:17 says, “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”   So my simple truth is this. If every good gift is from above, we need to pay better attention to what we’re doing with our lives and the things we hold dear.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. James 4:14

Wishing you joy and peace,

Lorrie