The Littlest Things

For as long as I can remember, I've loved to read ... losing myself in a hilarious comedy, a tear-jerking love story, a penetrating biography or a complicated mystery has always been one of my favorite things to do. When I was very young, I became captivated with a set of books called "The Littles." The main characters were tiny little creatures who were part human, part mouse who lived in the walls of the house belonging to a family named, of course, the Bigs. The books followed the Littles through a series of various adventures, and even now at 50 plus years of age, I still remember the storyline of several of those books. Recently, I've been thinking about the Littles ... and the big impact they had on my young mind. Those books are the first chapter books I recall reading on my own. I'm sure there were others before them, but the antics of the Littles were the stories that drew me in and truly instilled in me a love for reading that has remained throughout my life.

If I haven't learned anything in my 50 plus years of life, and certainly even more so over the last year, I hope I've learned that it's not the big events in life that should cause me to measure my time on earth but rather the little things. It seems to me that we often tend to gauge our lives by things that we deem big ... like graduations, marriages, deaths, births, jobs, houses, and so on. I've come to the conclusion that when I base my "life status" on only the large events, I'm missing the point of what really makes life ... well, life. Please don't misunderstand me, those big things are important ... some of them critically so ... but when I only focus on those, I often am blind to some huge meaning in some small packages.

I've always been a list maker, and over the last week or so, I've been working on a couple of very special lists ... my bucket list, things I want to do before I kick the bucket ... and my little things list, things that may seem small but that make a giant difference in my life. My bucket list has some big things like climbing a mountain, walking in a diabetes walk, traveling to Scotland, helping a total stranger, falling in love again, giving a large sum of money to someone anonymously, writing at least two more books ... but there are also some little things on that list as well ... dancing in the rain, building a snowman all by myself, making a cake from scratch, teaching my dog Julie to walk on a leash.

My little things list ... the list that really and truly matters most ... a hug from a small child, a heartfelt conversation with a hurting friend, the perfect cup of coffee, the sun on my face on a warm day, the sway of my hammock as I read a good book, the sound of my chimes on a windy Kansas day, the taste of sweet blueberries and sugar-free Cool Whip, the color of the leaves as they change in the fall, a midnight snowfall on a cold winter night, a kiss from a sweet dog who completely adores me, playing games with my children (and occasionally winning!), the music of birds in the trees along the walking trail ... and those, my friends, are only the tip of the iceberg.

My prayer is that God will keep me ever mindful, ever aware, ever appreciative of the little things that He so richly blesses me with every single day. That He will keep my eyes open and my heart seeking. That I won't miss ... that I won't skip ... that I won't ignore ... the littlest things.