I have basically been playing with children for the last forty years. Between having my own children, doing daycare for others, and then minding my own granddaughters while their parents go to work, I have been blessed to enjoy kids.

I love toddlers.

I know, I know – they have a bad reputation. Temper tantrums, stubbornness, potty training, sleep deprivation. I get it. But there is still something so special about toddlers and to this day, it remains my favorite stage of childhood.

Our littlest one, is twenty nine months old. She is a delight in every sense of the word, and she is full of life. Lately she has taken to playing in our hallway. It is the place where we have discovered the dark, flashlights, shadows, feathers (pronounced “fedders”), and snowmen.

The “fedders” actually come from the blanket on our bed, and always find their way out of our bedroom and into the hallway. They are a good size, and I can often find her on her belly, with the flashlight examining it as closely as she can get her face to it without touching it.

Then we proceed to space out, one of us at each end of the hallway, blowing the feather to one another. Yes, it is an amazing game she has discovered. The sound of her laughter when the feather moves a good distance, or goes up in the air, moves me to laugh equally as hard as she.

We are also into building snowmen. She moves her little hands to shape “the snow”, rolls the balls around, grunts as she lifts the snowball to stack it, until she has made a snowman. Once all formed, we begin our hunt for a carrot nose, rocks for eyes, three buttons, and a hat. Yes … all invisible.

Then comes the best part as she sits looking at it and asks, “What do you think, Mimi?”

What does one say about an invisible snowman? Seriously. And so I respond, “I think is is lovely!”; to which she responds, “Yes! Again?”

We begin the process over and make another snowman. And another. And another.

Always she asks, “What do you think, Mimi?”

She delights in hearing my answer every single time …

“I think it is beautiful!”

“I think this one is spectacular!”

“I think it is a marvelous snowman!”

“I think it is stupendous!”

Each answer brings the biggest smile ,and sheer joy to her heart, to know she has created well.

But then I wondered, is that all there is to this? I’ve been thinking on it for a few days and I’ve become convinced there is more to it than I realized at the time.

Sometimes we just want to be seen; we want our activity to be seen and to matter. Here her snowmen were a figment of her imagination and yet, my response brought affirmation to her tender heart.

Somehow my responses made her realize what she created in her mind was good. Not only good, but beautiful and marvelous and spectacular. Perhaps it even planted the seed in her heart that it is not only what we see with our eyes which is important, but what we see through the eyes of our hearts and mind which is even more critical. Maybe it was the smallest seed of faith which was being set into the soil of her heart.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, NASB)

And then we are told:

“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” (verse 3, NASB)

Faith isn’t always seen with our visible eyes, neither is the activity of God, but we believe. And we believe His work is lovely, beautiful, spectacular, marvelous, stupendous, and always good.

For lessons like this, I will get down on my knees and blow fedders back and forth down the hall. I will construct invisible snowmen and hunt for their accessories.

“And He called a child to Himself and set him among them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So whoever will humble himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-4, NASB)

Today I am joining … Heart Encouragement .