The World Through Jake's Eyes

This morning Jake and I were driving to Master's Kids. He's quite the chatty boy lately and I've really enjoyed the time alone with him driving to and from church every Tuesday. Today, completely unbeknownst to him, he reinforced a great lesson for me. This lesson, by the way, is one that we've been pounding into him for a while now. Funny how the Lord teaches me through my kids.

Jake loves to look at other cars and comment on them. Today as we're driving he points out a red car. He loves red cars and thinks all of them are race cars. As I find the car he's pointing out, my first reaction in my head (thankfully) is, "That piece of junk?" Now, the actual words didn't come out of my mouth, again, thankfully, because the car really was a piece of junk, but in his precious innocent eyes, this was a really cool car! I'm pretty sure those were his exact words, "That's a really cool car mommy!" So here's my train of thought over the next minute or so: this "pretty cool red race car" just so happens to be the exact same car Ryan drives, only his is white. Our car is a 1988 Toyota Corolla which my parents bought for me for my 18th birthday. I can still remember when my dad brought it home we all piled in and drove to Val's for hamburgers. Mmmmm. I loved loved loved that car and drove the stuffing out of it. Lots of trips to Quaker Meadow camp, and back and forth from northern to southern California. This car has served us well and we've put hardly a penny into it, other than normal upkeep. It has been a great car. But over the years (10 to be exact) I have found myself being ungrateful for the gift that car is. I know it's wrong, and I know I need to be thankful for what we do have, which is exactly what we tell Jakeman all the time because our lives don't consist of the things we possess (Luke 12:15). Instead of being thankful all the time (1 Thess. 5:18) that our car is still running well and getting Ryan to and from work and school, which is a lot of miles, sometimes I wish for a new car for him.

So...all that to say that I realized I should be looking at the world through my son's innocent eyes. When I look at our beat down, old car, I need to be seeing a "really cool white race car," and a special gift from the Lord that has lasted us an incredible 10 years.