Peach says: Do you remember playing outside as a child? Until forced to come inside in the evening, after dark and get a bath? I can remember being told I looked a tornado had hit me. I always wondered what that might mean, but did understand it had to do with all the fun I had enjoyed! All the dirt, all the sweat, (do we sweat when we are little? I don’t really remember that being a thing!) all the scrapes, etc.
Leave it all on the field. Indeed. Getting called in for bath time was the most upsetting thing as a child, especially in the summer or on the weekend.
I can remember in the early days of our marriage, my husband used the term ‘Granny Beads’. I was so puzzled, having never heard it. He had picked it up from his extremely Southern Mother and her folks. It means the dirt ring around a child’s neck who has been exuberantly playing outside for hours, and now the dirt looks a bit like a ring of Granny’s beads around their neck! Signs of a good time!
For some reason this phrase has been on my mind recently. 1) to introduce people to it, because children’s lives are much too sanitized anymore. We did that, starting with Homeowner’s Associations. and 2) I think I have an urge to live out the fullest number of our days, getting dirty, playing until way after dark, leaving it all on the field so to speak, with Granny Beads!
That’s going to look different for each of us, but it entails keeping a searching and believing heart before the Lord, letting Him lead us, and help us develop the talents He has put in us, for His Glory and the expansion of His Kingdom, and all of this does indeed lead to our JOY.
Maximizing our reach, with His love and excellency and generosity, learning and growing as we go.
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” – 2 Timothy 4.
I leave you this for a bit of fun and inspiration!
The Adventures and Musings of Peach and Batman 