Lessons from My Kids

By Courtney Dernier

She departs for imagination. She withdraws. She leaves. Not to be rude or show disinterest in the current happening, but to find the creativity that dwells within. 

*** 

Taking breaks is important. Especially to my four-year-old. As I assume is necessary for most toddlers, Baby Girl doesn’t engage with a single activity for a prolonged period. She flexes between activities. And no matter the activity or imaginative milieu, she is pulled toward creation. And create she does. She creates interaction between her toys and she forges new conflicts that her “friends” (usually action figures) can grapple with and overcome. She constructs worlds with increasing complexity, and uses those created lands to play out her ideas. Most recently, this has taken the form of using her toy Godzilla figure (which is, according to her, the Queen—not King—of the Monsters) to help protect the Hobbits from the Stormtroopers. Yeah, she likes to mix fandoms. Her mind knows no hierarchies, nor limits. After all, she creates the spaces——for her toys’ “personalities” to form, for her emotions to develop, for her mind to imagine infinite possibilities. She gives grace: to her “friends”, her sibling, and her family. She is four. 

As an adult, I don’t really do those things. I have a mental to-do list. Do the laundry. Read the book. Cook the food. Exercise the body. Creating space for play and creativity is not on the list (though cleaning up that space certainly seems to be). So it doesn’t happen without some “non-me” entity reminding me that I was Created to create. 

But she is a daily reminder of this internal wiring. She is a daily reminder that I am Created to flex. I am Created to give grace. I am Created to curate. 

And, as part of Creation, so are you. 

So whatever creation looks like for you, or for me...

to such belongs the Kingdom of God.