Warmer Days, Dirty Boys

I love summer; I love the change it brings. It seems like everyone walks around with a permanent glow, smiles fixed. I feel the sunshine, see the various hues of green and beautiful blue sky, and hear the songs of happy birds. I keep thinking, "This is just a glimpse into how great God is, and how great his plan for creation was before we did the whole apple thing."

But sin has entered the world, and so the bummer to all this sun is that my boys are sooooooo dirty. They bound out of bed and out into our little piece of paradise, straight to the dirt, sand box, garden, barefoot in the grass, mowing the lawn with Grandpa, wrestling with our large, yellow lab Oscar, helping me weed, playing in the rocks, eating in the play fort, and then running back through my white carpeted house with sunny exuberance and very dirty toes.

I really do love it, but it hardly keeps my house cleaner having them play outside. It just expands their reign of destruction. Now, they bring all these little particles of dirt into my house. I can't force them to wear their shoes outside, it is too fun, too easy to run out the backdoor without this time consuming process. So, in the house they run, with blackened feet. I try and grab them at the backdoor and give their toes a sink bath, but sometimes I can't keep up with all the in and out traffic. So, slowly my white carpet is becoming something other than white. I think my best bet is to just start saving for my September carpet cleaning event.

I hope you all know I love this. I do. I even love the evening baths and the rotting floor in our bathroom. How could I not? Amongst all this dirt and nightly splish-splash are two boys experiencing God's goodness and God's plan for creation, pure joy.

It reminds me what God must have felt as he saw what he created and saw that it was good, and even now, with all the dirt around, I think he still looks down on his creation and still sees that it is good. For this GRACE I am thankful.