The Games We Play

Creativity and imagination are wonderful gifts.

The girls playing Wipeout

I was invited into the twins' room this morning to witness them playing Wipeout. Some of you may be familiar with the game Wipeout from television; the show features a series of huge obstacle courses which contestants must navigate through, seeking to win $50,000 in the final round, the Wipeout Zone. Failure in these courses usually involves a short (or sometimes rather long) fall into the water below the course, and these falls are called Wipeouts!

The twins have greatly enjoyed watching this program, and today they decided to build their own Wipeout course. So, on the floor of their room, they put together a mini-Wipeout course using leggos and plastic toy dogs as contestants. They would roll the dice to move forward through the course, and roll against each other to see if they successfully passed an obstacle or if they got a wipeout

Caleb beating Daddy at Football

I'm pretty sure they got the idea for this from Caleb, who, the day before, had put together his own version of football using various G.I. Joes as players. The rules of his game are far too complicated to outline here, but it also involves moving the men around the "field" based on the roll of the dice, which determines if blocks are successful, whether passes are caught or intercepted and if the extra-point attempt is blocked (among many other things; I'm simplifying greatly). He played his mother in this game last night, and she managed to beat him 14 - 7; apparently she is a better football player than I am because in my match with him this morning, he managed to squeeze past me to win 7 - 6 (my extra point attempt was blocked). Hopefully later today we can have a rematch and I will fare better!

It was fun for us to see these bursts of creativity, to watch the children finding joy in the moment even in the midst of the busy, hectic and stressful season that our family is living in right now. That was a good reminder to me that we ought to always seek contentment, no matter what our circumstances, because He is working all things together for our good and His glory.

So take a moment right now to relax and find the joy that God has built into this moment. And if you think of it, pray for my kicker; he's got a history of being blocked and we've got a big game coming up!