Inside Outside

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One of our children recently texted me a picture of her two-year-old fresh up from a good night’s sleep. Obviously he had been awake awhile before getting out of his crib. His PJ bottoms were on, but inside out, and his PJ top — well, I don’t know where to start to put a shirt on him quite like that. His creative juices were definitely flowing.

On Friday I had a bit of a topsy turvy day, one of those “best laid plans” days that doesn’t turn out quite like you thought, but in the end is much better than what you planned. Sandwiched in between work, errands, lunch with a friend, and our English country dance group’s spring ball, I got to babysit two grandkids. That, too, was better than I expected, which is saying a lot because it is always wonderful.

For part of the time, we lolled around on the front porch on the beautiful spring day.  Of course, we didn’t just loll. The four-year-old also had an idea for make-believe. Per her instructions, we pretended that outside was inside and inside was outside. She and her brother peered into the living room window to look “outside” while we three stood on the porch which was “inside.”

Make-believe is fun for kids to play among themselves and it’s fun when we adults play it with them. It was fun on Friday to imagine the outside as the inside and the inside as the outside. However, making believe opposites is a different matter in the real world. God gave Isaiah strong words to tell His people about that. It happens a lot in the world around us, too. Our children are depending on us to help them get this right.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

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