Just When...

Just when I was starting to think that my life is not all that adventurous, I have a day like today (or yesterday as the case may be given that it is after midnight and now is the first chance I've had to write).  Not adventurous in a big way since it was just a family gathering for the Fourth of July but, rather in the small, whispering way that I think maturity has taught me to appreciate, if not relish in. 

Tonight, I discovered how much my two year old, Luke loves fireworks.  He is normally very quiet and reserved but he exploded tonight with laughter, clapping, and exclamations in a way that he never does all at the sight of popping fireworks.  For the boys who doesn't speak much, his repeated "More pops!  More pops!" at the top of his lungs stunned us all and made me once again realize how magnetic this little boy really is as we all turned to watch him instead of the fireworks.  There is no way to adequately describe how fun and precious the moment was just watching my little boy and learning more about him and being privileged to see a side of him that I seldom get to.  It is so incredible learning more about this little person that God has given me!

When we are little, we all dream about what we want to do when we grow up and what sort of adventures we will have when we finally reach an age of independence.  I don't know of many kids that don't want to change the world in one way or another but as we grow, saving the world doesn't get to be an everyday adventure anymore which is why I think our culture struggles so much with people graduating college and still feeling lost. 

We've been told that we can take on the world and have adventures and then come to find out that not only we are on the bottom rungs of the ladders we wish to climb, the grand plans we had don't seem actionable anymore.  My plans were quite different from the life I am living now; I planned to go on with school and get my doctorate and help a lot of people but life intervened and now I am quite busy with the two cutest little people who have ever walked the face of the planet! 

I think maturity has deeply changed the way I view adventure, with a little help from C.S. Lewis.  He wrote once about how we are wired to crave adventure, to be a part of a grand story and how, in reality, God is our Hero and the whole story of our lives is about this.  Unfortunately, I have no idea where this passage was or even which of his books it is in since I read it years and years ago and it has stuck with me since.  But, the idea isn't only from C.S. Lewis.  The whole of the Bible shows the overarching story of God's redemptive heroism and astonishingly enough, we get to participate in it through following Him every day.  Adventure isn't just in the big things but it is in the little things too.

I think that is why I was so caught off guard by the little adventures I was able to have with my kids and family tonight shooting off fireworks.  I, like most of our culture, don't expect to find such adventure and consequently joy in quiet (or popping, as Luke said!) events.  But, God has made our lives to be lived with love and joy and adventure at every turn.  Just when I'm not expecting the adventure, I find a little more of it.