When I was a little girl growing up in Canada my sister and I would literally be on the edge of our seats waiting for another episode of Anne of Green Gables to start. We were enchanted with the red headed orphan girl who had won the hearts of the people of Avonlea. A passionate girl with an imagination that soared in the open spaces of beautiful Prince Edward Island. I watched it again recently with my ten year old daughter and it awakened my spirit leaving me with a deep sense of longing. Longing for the simplicity of a childhood like Anne’s where fields of long grass, an open sky and the wind was the platform for expression. Not Instagram, Facebook and texting. Where parents were firm, strict even. Respected. Where best friends linked arms and giggled and were free to play all day outside making up games under the sun. Where children were involved in the cooking and cleaning, things that took time and preparation and where prayers were lifted and expected at the end of the day. Times have changed. There are things that have taken the place of afternoon tea with fine china and conversation. Life is busy and hurried and store bought. But if we long for a simpler time, what’s to stop us from bringing it back? Are we brave enough to even try?
Over the weekend I took a car full of girls to a play. The girls all had their iPhones and iPads on their laps.
“Ok, I said, everyone put down your games. Look out the window and find animals in the clouds!”
I completely expected them to ignore me but one by one they shouted...I see a dragon! A dolphin! An alligator! It was as if their imaginations were just waiting for permission to be unleashed.
I see a trend out there of mothers longing for simpler things. Simpler lives. Mothers who bravely say, I want my kids to eat REAL food. Mothers who put kites in the hands of their children instead of video game controllers. Mothers and fathers who give their kids the freedom on saturdays to let the front door slam behind them as they run out to play in the grass without an agenda. Parents who want to fill their families lives, not with the next greatest adventure, but with the next sweetest moment...the right now moment. The moment they take a deep breath and sink into the beauty of a simple day filled with nothing but their God given imagination. And in the words of beloved Anne Shirley: ““Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
Dear Lord, thank you for this beautiful earth. The wind, the sky, the grass and the clouds. Thank you for the imaginations of children and the spaces you’ve created to nurture that. Thank you for the simple things in life and help us to carve out a time and place to enjoy them. Thank you for creating in us a longing for all that is good and pure and of YOU Lord. May our longing make us brave. Make us present. And draw us to you with every breath. In Jesus name, Amen.
What inspires and awakens YOUR spirit? Do you long for a simpler life?
