We sipped our tea and read a poem about children whose eyes notice more than adult eyes because they’re closer to the ground. I closed the app on my phone (I wish I could have said “closed the book”) and sipped the tea slow.
“What does this poem say to you?”
I don’t normally query about poems. I let them love them silently, or adore them vocally, or let them grumble about not understanding. And if they ask questions, I’ll try to answer. But poetry should never be academic for children.
“It says to me that the children loved small things. And their daddies couldn’t see the small things.”
Exactly, child.
Why do we as adults fail to see the small things? How many small things do I miss every day?
I sipped again. Took a breath. And wondered.
And my breath was stolen when I thought-spoke this next sentence.
“This poem reminds me of God’s delight in small things and small people. Remember David, Zaccheus, the sparrows that he loves to protect, the sands on the shore, and the hairs on your head? God delights in small things and small-seeming people. That’s why we study nature and keep nature notebooks—-to marvel in the smallness and to wonder at the magnificence and scale of His creation.”
Lessons for me. Always lessons for me as I teach them.
God is in the business of delighting in small things.
That time several years ago, when my Mom gave me a used pastry cutter because I had appreciated hers over the years. God orchestrated that. It was a small thing, and He delighted in her generosity.
When He plays a song on the radio that speaks the words that I have been reading in scripture. He delights in that small reminder.
When He reminds me of His service to the church and sacrificial love by prompting my husband to clean the garage. Okay, that may have been a big thing. But God delights in it. (And I do, too!)
These small things are grace. Grace for me.
And I need to name them, or I take them for granted.
Like Ann Voskamp’s famous list, I’ve started a list of my own.
An honest confession of a broken lamp shade. Thankful for honesty rather than a coverup.
Like Snowflake Bentley, I too, find God’s miracles in the everyday invisible.
In 1925 Bentley said, “Under the microscope….every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated….” The biblical sermon becomes a microscope by which the intricacies of God’s design in the world can be seen by others….God uses his creation to declare his glory to us. (source) (more about Bentley here.)
Like Bentley, it is my job to chronicle the Goodness of God by noticing small things. Everyday graces, breathed into ink. No matter how ridiculous it looks or illogical it may seem.
Come with me; be ridiculously enamored with small things today.
–Heather
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For a delightful children’s book about Snowflake Bentley, we’d recommend this one.
Mary Azarian’s woodcut illustrations are fascinating, and my children adore this book. (Small warning, it can cause an obsession with taking photographs of snowflakes. Harmless enough, but can be time consuming with children.)