The Simple Things/

This morning I will be able to get the kids up so they can get ready for school. I have been able to wake them on several occasions via the phone but that is just not the same. Being able to rub their backs and poke them a bit if needed sure beats a phone to the ear any day. This seems like a simple thing but the simple things are what I missed the most while I have been away.

The simple things are also what we take for granted most during our regular lives also. We don't see something like waking the kids up as special. We don't see how playing a game or sitting at the table to eat dinner can be something so treasured. We just pass it off as the routine and don't think twice about it, until it is gone from our lives.

In our lives now we try to plan special moments in to it to highlight the mundane. We have a dinner out or an overnight trip with our spouse so that this event can be recorded as something worth while and outside of the norm for us. Why not look to the regular occurances of life as special. Why don't we realize that the simple act of waking a child is a moment that can be treasured?

I think it is because our nature always craves more. We expect to be stimulated by something different everyday. Our culture feeds this to us with the commercials and advertisments, new a special offers. It has developed into this perpetual disatisfaction with the things we have.

So back to waking the kids. I realize that in a week or so I will return to Afghanistan and my opportunity will be gone again for this activity. I also realize that everyday that I am away is one more that I have lost with them. Also that the possibility that I may never be able to do this with them again. All of a sudden the routine becomes important in my heart. Circumstance changes and I see with new eyes the value of what before was the mudane.

So could we not all move back to a place where we see the value and pleasure in the simple things in life. Could we not reduce the noise that keeps us so inatentive to the simple so that we could slow down and enjoy just waking the kids up, or sitting for a meal with our families. What would it take but a change of our own hearts to place the simple things in life back into a place of importance to us. Just some effort I believe. Just a look with new eyes is all.

Try these glasses on. What if you could never again touch the warm back of your child and rub it as you say to them it is time to get up? How important would it become if today was the last time you could see their little eyes open slowly with a soft moan of disgust as their sleep was interupted. Look through these glasses today and see that the most important thing for you to have in your life is the opportunity to enjoy the simpleset moments of that life.

Rfelect opon all of the things you do today and ask, what if this was gone, how would it make me feel. What would I do if I no longer had this in my life? Examine the feeling, be honest and see if that thing should be moved up or down on the importance scale of your life.