My son and his family hosted the birthday party for my granddaughter today. She will be turning 10 years old in a couple of days. Her mother reminded us that she will be in double digits now for the rest of her life – unless she lives to be 100 years old. I never thought of it that way before. My granddaughter was super excited to officially be a “pre-teen”. And she was excited for her party. She has friends at school, but for whatever reason, she usually only has 1 or 2 attend her birthday parties. Perhaps it is because it is so close to the start of school. I was happy to see that she had 5 friends come over – 4 girls and 1 boy. They all knew each other from previous years and were all in the same class this year. All of them seemed to have a great time just running around, screaming, piling on top of one another, and chasing one another. The noise level increased exponentially. At the same time, when things got too rough and one child got hurt, everyone calmed down and were concerned for them. And at one point, one child was kind of left out of the group. When my daughter in law made my granddaughter aware of it, she went over and got them all together again. So, while they were all full of energy, laughter, and hyperactivity, they were also very caring and concerned for each other. One little girl wrote a heartfelt note in the card expressing how she was excited to start 5th grade with my granddaughter. Another one gave her a cross that she had decorated. It made me happy to see the joy and love of all the “pre-teens”.

I Found God today in the joy, love, and care of children.