marble-like reminders

As soon as the door opened, she ran around me in circles, singing my name "Desireeeeee! Desirooooo! Desiraaaaaaay!". I feel celebrated sometimes, like on my birthday, but no one makes me feel more celebrated than Meg. She is my four-year-old best friend.

We have some pretty good times together -- we collect leaves, we color in coloring books, we blow bubbles, we play in her dollhouse, we play with my beads, we go for walks. Despite the age difference, Meg and I really are similar--we both get excited by the yellowest leaf, her younger brother's mobility skills, the ladybug that lands on one of our arms, the growing tomatoes, her pink tutu. Time with Meg is always a joy.

Earlier this week, I came over to her house for a playdate and I brought her some wooden beads and a small wooden cross--things I knew she would love. She eagerly set about putting them together on twine to create a necklace and then stopped, mid-motion and exploded a question - "DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY TREASURE CHEST?!"

My answer, of course, was a resounding "YES!" and she darted upstairs to retrieve her chest of treasures, which turned out to be a small box. Inside, I oohed and ahhed at the sequins and pearl-like beads and diamond-esque objects rolling around. She described almost all of them and then picked out four large marble-like beads and held them out to me-- "Look, DesirAY, these are for you." I thanked her profusely and admired their beauty and then said something like "Oh, Meg, you don't have to give me your beads! Keep them!"

She looked down in her open palms and, with four-year-old wisdom beyond her years, said, "But DesirAY, I don't use them anymore. And we're supposed to give away things that we don't use anymore. That's why we help poor people!"

*

It has been a week of giving things away. A few times a year, I purge my belongings as an outward reflection of an inward journey toward simplicity. I am a person with a lot of wealth and privilege, and the giving away process is partially a response to the growing critical need I see and is partially an exercise in recognizing that all the resources I have and use are borrowed from the One who provides them all. Woody has been preaching on stewardship lately--how are we offering our time and gifts and resources to God?--and I am asking harder questions about sacrificial living. And then I have Meg, who sometimes makes things so simple for me, and paints the picture in a way that my complicated 23-year-old worldview can understand.

I'm grateful, lately, for the marble-like beaded reminders. And for simplicity. And for Meg.