A time to Get in the Game...

My soon-to-be-ten-year old sits across from me at the dinner table as we putter our little cars around the game board. Filling our vehicles with a spouse and children, going to college and gaining a career, making money and loosing some along the way, all to end up at retirement. We are driving ourselves through the game of LIFE.

Family board games fill her love-tank.

I'm trying to show her life can look much different then one we are playing. That we have no guarantee that life is all sweet. All. The Time.

It's fun to jump purple and green cars along yellow brick roads to "gain $10,000 from the talent competition" or find out "you are having twins". You may end up having to "renovate your home for $40,000" or "choose a new career" in the 30 minute span it takes to complete this amusing but unrealistic game of life.

No one tells you as you journey through marriage that the hardships could possibly include loosing a child, not just your job. That your spouse may not look at you the same five-years-in, as they did when they spoke of the promises. No one warns you that children may rebell and hate regardless of your best efforts, and that most times it's out of your control.

The small square boxes never say "cry yourself to sleep", "feel lonely", or "loose someone close". Truthfully, it's okay that they don't. It is just a game.

However, real life is no game at all and it doesn't always bring joy and celebratory news. It requires patience, faithfulness, endurance, grace, forgiveness, communication, reflection, intimacy, and long-suffering. It means you don't roll the dice careless or spin the wheel reckless.

Life is about not wasting it.

My eldest beauty snuggles in with confidence and joy during board game competition and is learning she can walk away complete even in her loss. She is learning a game doesn't require victory in order to be fulfilling.

As we wrap up the money bills in rainbow stacks of pastel and dismantel the vehicles filled with tiny blue and pink peg-people, I watch her gleam. Time well spent playing LIFE while learning life.

We get back to our nitty gritty of brushing teeth before bedtime stories and saying prayers. Before blankets are tucked around little bodies and good-night kisses are given. We chat and discuss important life issues and I realize that she is embracing the concept that true gain isn't always in the win.

Life is about making it count. All. Of. It.

Win or Lose.

Is life feeling like a win or a lose to you today?
What can you do to make it count?