I recently realized how easily entertained I am. Ever since I was a child I have been able to pass hours of time simply looking for things. It's a trait I've passed on to my own children and something we share with real enthusiasm.
As a little girl, my babysitter, Beth, taught me how to play "Find the Button." While my sister, brother and I closed our eyes she would hide a button somewhere in the house and then we would look for it. She would give us clues like, "getting warmer" or "getting colder" to guide us in our search. We looked forward to evenings with Beth and our favorite game. These days I'm the official button-hider in our family and, like their mother, my children pass many long winter hours looking for that button.
Another favorite childhood pastime of mine was finding agates. Agates are rocks that have very pretty lines in them when they are polished. We loved going to the old gravel road where we would look for agates for hours.
Maybe it's genetic. My children have discovered their own love of looking for interesting rocks. They can see beauty in stones that are far less exotic than the agates of my childhood. They are always on the lookout for rocks and bring them home by the handful.
On a sunny summer day, you might find us laying on the front yard looking for shapes in the clouds. Yep. It's another looking game that I love and encourage. In our hyper-scheduled world I don't think children are given nearly enough time to have their head in the clouds and I'm on a one woman mission to change that for my own children.
Lately, we've added looking for crosses to our list of "look for" favorites. We've found that if you're looking for them, you can find crosses everywhere - in high line poles, window frames, intersections, light poles, trees, fences, car doors, jungle gyms and, yes, even in the clouds.
"Find the Cross" does more than keep my children occupied while riding around town in our minivan. It teaches them that they are surrounded by signs of the cross and all that it represents. The other day, when we were getting into the van, one of my daughters noticed that the door panel and window on our vehicle intersect to make the shape of a cross. She commented, "That must mean God is with us when we're driving."
In life, we will all experience times when we're searching for things bigger and more consuming than buttons and rocks and shapes in the clouds. If all of my years as a "look for" fanantic have taught me anything it's that when you're really searching, you don't have to look any farther than the cross.
Play a game of "Find the Cross" today. The cross, and the man who loved you enough to die on it for you, are closer than you think. Go ahead, take a look. As Beth would say, "You're getting warmer."
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