With a Little Shizzazz...

There is never any question in my mind that God exists. OK, well, sometimes I forget that I believe, but I always know I am in His care. Just this week, I had a chance to chuckle at how His plan is so intricate and yet perfectly simple at the same time. Well really there is nothing intricate, it's all simple. It's the not knowing in our heads...the creative thoughts born out of confusion, trying to make sense of it all, that complicates it. Sometimes, however, a moment comes along that is just so beautifully simple. All intricacy is suddenly distilled into one drop of simplicity.

So, now that I have built up your expectations. I will tell you about the moment.

This week, I was sweeping the deck. Liam thought it looked like fun. Huck Finn style, he begged me to take over. I was generous enough to share the joyful job of dancing around the deck with the broom, fighting large tree detritus with him. He took over just as joyfully. His sister, always a skeptic, ever the realist, looked on with disdain.

Often, the complexity of the diametric opposite personalities of my children is something with which my brain perseverates. I can really hung up on it...struggling to figure out why one was given ALL the optimism and the other ALL the pessimism. One ALL the extroversion, the other ALL the introversion. One is food motivated and struggles with weight, one has to be encouraged to eat and is a beanpole. And the list goes on and on this way. It's challenging, it's like they each require different parenting. And yet, they have only me most of the time. But I digress...

So, here is Liam sweeping the porch as if he were swordfighting or at play. And here is Elena, getting more and more annoyed at his glee. Until she cannot stand it.

Elena: "Liam, you know NO ONE likes to sweep. It's not something people enjoy. It's a chore. It's stupid."

Liam: "I'm making it fun...I'm adding a little shizzazz into it to make it fun."

I love that he doesn't really pay any mind to his sister's wheedling. I love that he makes his own fun. I love that he makes up a word for his own fun. But, I also love that she sets him straight. She's always there to make sure he knows what the world expects of him. That he might not want to pick his nose in public, or wear his "lambie" pajama pants that are two sizes too small out to church, or eat with his fingers.

I love his shizzazz and I love her thoughtful and pedantic way with him. She wants to protect him against the side of him that is too quirky to be appreciated by most of this world. I believe this is God's beautiful plan. Although I sometimes wish they were more alike and there was some degree of moderation in their personalities, He sent them to be foil characters for each other. No sense in fighting it. It just is what it is.