The things you can learn from "those darn kids!"

I am in the real world now. Working and living in Denver, paying bills and fighting rush hour traffic.  Dealing with office politics.  Witnessing people be torn to pieces by family tragedy or devastating circumstances. Oh...and getting hit in a parking lot by a man who refuses to give me insurance information and offers me cash (which he had plenty of since he had numerous drug charges on his record.)

It is so easy to get frustrated with this world. It is easy to get lost in the terrible things happening in this world. It is easy, as an adult, to see how complicated the world's issues are. Even to ask the difficult, age old question of why God would let such things happen to the world and people. 

Being an adult is exhausting.  I have been blessed to work with kids for the past six years and they have taught me so many lessons about life.  

Like the girls that dance outrageously on the deck to N'Sync and Backstreet Boys. 

Or the kids that try and see how many s'mores they can eat. 

Or the group of boys that takes dodgeball to the extreme. 

Or that other group of boys that carry around a teddy bear that they won in some camp competition just because. 

Or the ones that wear crazy, knee high socks...because they can't figure out a reason not to. 

And even the group of kids that ride around stick horses with cowboy hats and squirt guns raiding the craft bus. 

For me, there are so many kids that have taught me life lessons. 

But there is one in particular that continues to teach me, even from a different state. I am learning that talking on the phone to someone you love is far more important than writing a paper for school or studying for a math test. Or that sometimes you have to watch a movie with your friends to admire the really cute Prince Caspian....just because.  She is teaching me to enjoy the simple things....like bunnies and even annoying people.   

She is teaching me that I can't get frustrated with myself for "driving backwards". It just gives us something to laugh about.   She is teaching me to just be in awe of God and the things he does.  She is teaching me that even I, the adult in the real world, can be inspired, challenged and changed by someone younger than me.   What she doesn't know...is that I want to be like her when I grow up! 

Romans 8:15:^{15 -17}This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!