Wall of Faith - Jennifer - A Slice of Life

It was a grey and cloudy morning. The second day of Cub Scouts Day camp. It was actually quite refreshing after the summer heat of the day before! My seven-year-old son and I had arrived early. As I was chatting with another scout mom, I mentioned how excited I was that Sheppard and I had actually had enough time for a sit-down breakfast of leftover waffles and pancakes from my culinary extravaganza from the Saturday prior. 

“Yum!”, said my friend of twin boys. “We had sausage.”

“Well, nuts!” I thought to myself, “That sounds much more substantial than my ‘Bob’s Red Mill multi-grain mix. Like it really even matters, Jennifer.” I scolded my pride.

“Boys! Tell Jennifer what else we had.”

In my mind I imaged a gourmet omelet or hearty nourishing breakfast burrito at this point.

One of her boys looked at me with an enormous, satisfied grin, “Pie! We had banana-crème pie!”

I burst out laughing, “That’s awesome!” (and no, it wasn’t because it had soothed my pride…. Okay… well, maybe a little  bit.). “What a fun breakfast!”

They had been cleaning out her Mother-in-Law’s kitchen and pantry. Being from the Depression Era, there was an ample supply of horded food, including some frozen pies that needed to be eaten. She had hoped they would be thawed and baked for after dinner the night before. However, her best laid plans did not “pan” out. The thawing process took longer than expected.

Her boys had so been looking forward to those pies she decided to bake them up for breakfast the next day. Clearly, a delightfully fun memory was also the ‘Pie`ce de Re’sistance” served up that morning.

It is said, “All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15 states, “… here is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and drink and be merry, (in other words, ‘Have fun! And this will stand by him in his toils.”

Notice it says, “in his toils?”. Not instead of his toils. But that a “Spoon full of Sugar, or in this case “pie”, helps the medicine go down.

We as parents, meaning well, can tend to take raising our kids right too seriously at times. So much so, we forget to just have fun and enjoy them. Let’s face it! Kids love having fun! And where the fun is, that is where they will be magnetized to.

Now I am not advocating recklessness or irresponsibility by any means, but breaking code in the middle of the “daily-do’s” is mentally and emotionally healthy for all involved. It’s a perspective changer and lifts the ‘heavies”.
As a first born, I can tend to easily be responsibility-oriented to a fault.

I have found that humor or a pause for fun keeps me from spiraling down the whirlpool of the daily grind. It renews my mind and refreshes my purpose. It’s not just the day-to-day that God wants us to live. It’s “Life” He wants us to have!

Kids need this survival tool too! A balance of “ Merry” to see them through the weights of peer, school, and, yes, even parent expectations.

I love writing for Wall of Faith! The ideas are always flowing through my brain. However, to sit down, like now, and write it out, I always tend to make that part a heavier burden in my mind then what it actually is when I just sit down and do it.

So yesterday, I decided to join our son in the making of his creation “Snoopy-mobile!” All I ended up doing was painting two wheels, two rainbow stripes, and two white sides. He did the rest. But, oh, the joy of bonding with him and letting my mind relax as I painted was exactly the second wind I needed to sit down today, clear minded and freeing  my fingertips to “trip the light fantastic” across the keyboard!
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So I leave you with this simple “pie-for-life” recipe. Mix a cup of Mary with a cup of Martha and stir until well mixed. Crank up the oven and slice up the pie! Bring “Beauty” to the “Beast” of the worldly heavies and help yourself to a generous “Slice of Life!”