Mar
11
2022
Imitation
Posted in Discipleship 4 Comments
My two-and-a-half year old granddaughter was here for six days.
Her mommy and daddy went on a Babymoon before their second child arrives in May.
It was a delightful time.
We read books, did puzzles together, and played.
I love to see the imagination of a child come alive.
My three granddaughters are all a year apart.
Each has a vivid imagination.
Each imagination is at a different developmental stage.
I heard elaborate stories as she played.
I do not enter into a child’s play until invited.
It is so important for them to play and figure things out on their own.
It is equally important to be close by to ooh and aah over a drawing, or toys set up a certain way.
It was the latter that intrigued me and my husband.
The one short movie that we allow her to see is, Little Bear, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
My youngest daughter loved to watch the Little Bear videos when she was small.
Now I can stream those same fifteen minute shows from my phone.
One story that captivated her was when Little Bear’s Uncle Rusty came to visit.
You learn quickly that Uncle Rusty is a logger and he has come to help build a house.
The house was being built for Little Bear’s friend, Emily, and her Granny.
My granddaughter talked about all she saw in that short movie.
After it was over and the TV was off, she went back into the corner of our family room to play.
I heard the sound of a hammer from the tool set.
I heard her talking and pretending.
She was back there for quite a while but I never dreamed I would see what I saw.
As I went back into the corner to close the blinds on the sliding doors, I saw it.
She had built a house, taking things from many toys that were in the toy basket.
She found small ponies that she put on colorful squares.
She found a puzzle with pieces that go on a wooden pole.
She attached the pieces from the tool set onto the wooden poles at various angles.
She had a mini van with people next to her house.
Rectangles of wood were fastened at interesting angles.
She fastened everything with “nuts and bolts” from the tool set.
No one was back in the corner with her.
My husband took a video of her as she talked to him about her house.
She told him she needed to get more milk and she would be gone for forty minutes.
I sat across the room astounded at the world she had created by herself in the corner.
Ironically, her daddy used to do the same thing.
He would call me into the family room to see what he had made.
He would hang small action figures from almost non-existent ledges on the stone fireplace.
He would hang his Fisher Price pirates precariously from the ship’s sail.
I have pictures of him in the same corner with his arms extended, so proud of his creation.
It’s the way he saw the world.
A stone fireplace had places on which to hang toys.
I never even saw the stone ledges until he showed me.
Now his daughter is doing the same thing.
His daughter is repeating what I saw her daddy do when he was a little boy.
Amazing.
Like father, like daughter.
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
It is wonderful that my granddaughter is like her daddy.
She isn’t aware that in her play, she is copying her daddy when he was a boy.
It is innate.
It is so sweet to see.
I sent a picture of the house for her mommy and daddy to see.
They were also amazed.
I captioned it: Her father’s daughter.
The truth of that warms my heart.
I know that seeing her imitate her daddy is so sweet to them.
I also know that her mommy and daddy care deeply that she imitates her Heavenly Father.
My son loves the Lord Jesus and follows Him.
As my granddaughter follows her daddy, he will show her how to follow Christ.
There is no better kind of imitation.
We all have someone watching and learning from us.
Do they see Christ clearly in us?
Do we point them to the One who is worthy of our imitation?
Something to ponder.
Love this Gina
Thank you, Cindy!
Blessings,
Gina
So sweet! Thanks for sharing and including a picture!
Mike,
It was the sweetest thing to see.
So many memories.
Gina