Children find pleasure in simple things and I was no different.  From my grandmother’s backyard to a foster home, I found nature fascinating.  I used to watch my grandfather rob his beehives out in the back yard and then eat some of the honey and the honeycomb.  It fascinated me how bees could make something so sweet.

I remember playing in the rain, as long as it was a shower and not a thunderstorm.

“Hearken unto this, O Job:  stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.”     (Job 37:14)

When placed in a second foster home, I had many chores, but there was free time as well, and during those times I loved to lay out on the hill and look up at the clouds which floated by and see how many different pictures I could make from the shape of the clouds.  It was always a changing and colorful canvas.  I could think and dream and pretend.  I would watch as buzzards soared high in the heavens and as hawks circled the sky searching for their next meal.  I have always and still love to hear them.  I see them now perched on the tops of trees and occasionally I will see one capture its prey.

“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:  Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee:  and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.”      (Job 12:7-8)

During the day I would watch butterflies flutter in the garden and bees gather nectar from the flowers. Birds of every description could be seen.  It was a simple time with the fragrance of honeysuckle sweetening the morning air in the early summer.  Walnuts, pecans, persimmons, and hickory nuts were plentiful in their due seasons.  My foster parents allowed that time for me to grow and learn without too much interruption.

I remember well climbing a tree to retrieve Muscadine grapes.  I loved them and have never found such a unique taste as they had.  I would sit in the tree and pass the time of day just thinking and dreaming and then as the day became warmer I would sit and read.  It was a way of escape and not be burdened where I would end up, for I knew I was not there to stay.

At night during the early summer I would lay on that same hill and watch as lightning bugs twinkled and found them fascinating and wondered how that light worked on that bug. I would gaze into the heavens and see the moon and stars and wonder how many there were and how far up in the sky they went.

I wonder now how many children still play in the mud, fish for perch and scale them or if they know how to scale a fish, or can vegetables and fruit.  I remember sitting under a China berry tree and shelling peas for my foster mom.  We picked peas every morning and to this day, I don’t understand how they produced as many as they produced overnight.  I would ask my foster sister as she took me by the hand to go to the field and pick peas but I never had a satisfactory answer to that very important question.

As much as we believe a child needs another toy, they don’t.  They have so much more fun pretending and camping out and learning about nature.  Enjoying God’s great outdoors and the wonders He has so freely provided.

There is a hymn which I still love to sing, “How Great Thou Art” and the song takes me back to that all too brief time in my foster home.

I pray you too will help your children find the ordinary pleasures of nature.  There is much to learn from nature and many stories in God’s Word to read to them regarding God’s creation.  Time passes all too fast.  We don’t have our children long.  Teach all you can while you may.  They will soon be but memories.  And sweet memories they are.

“I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:  marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”      (Psalms 139:14

 Eileen Light