Why The Best Moments of Life May Never Be Pinned or Posted.

They wanted to play hide-and-go-seek in a place with lots of trees.

So on Saturday morning, we grabbed our jackets and headed across the bike trail to the campground that grows quiet when the warmth of summer wanes. 

 No friendly campers or smoldering bonfires greeted us when we neared the playground, just empty swings swaying ever-so-slightly to the whistle of the brisk October breeze. Free-falling foliage waltzed in the wind as the trees hovering overhead surrendered their autumn togs. Just beyond the campground, the lake sparkled silver in the morning sun. And we shielded our eyes with cusped hands to behold the watery brilliance.

Intuitively, the kids slowed their steps, the beauty sedating their hurry.

I watched Joshua race to catch an acorn falling from a snarled limb, and laughed with him as he toppled with crunch onto a pile of leaves beneath the old oak’s burly branches.

The rasp of the rusty swings beckoned me to turn my head just in time to see the girls flinging themselves through the air with a happy hoot. Josh shifted his attention from acorns to acrobatics and rushed to join his sisters on the playground. The kids linked hands and pumped their legs to the rhythm of the chains’ metallic whines.  Girls squealed and sunbeams streaked their hair with temporary golden highlights. Then they flung their heads back to catch the wind in their tangled strands and crooned church camp tunes as they filled the park with swelling joy.

Hide-and-go-seek was long forgotten, but the simple thrills of childhood were re-discovered.

I smiled at my goofy crew and reached instinctively for the phone in my pocket. I touched the camera icon on my tiny screen.

Aimed and snapped.

The moment was idyllic, the perfect post or pin at day’s end, a gleaming snippet of life to share with the world beyond my messy living room.

The kids’ giggles jangled through the empty campground like the ring of midnight bells, and I flipped through the photos I’d just snapped, hoping to find one  that had rightly captured our sweet Saturday morning. 

 A hazy tangle of arms and legs peered up at me from my phone’s smudgy screen. I studied the blur of bodies in every frame, disappointed with the muddled shots. Maybe if I tried from a different angle…

I spotted a swirl of pink out of the corner of my eye and set my phone down just in time to see Maggie spiraling down a nearby hill.

Her frilly tutu collected dried leaves as she rolled, and her happy whoops assembled her siblings in a snap.  The swings emptied as the big kids followed Little One’s lead. Legs flailed. Arms flapped. Bodies rolled.

 At the bottom of the hill, the kids rose dizzy, their knees and backsides sporting green kisses from the damp ground.  Maggie was plucking brittle bits of orange leaves from her tousled hair when her big sister declared a re-do.

“Let’s do it again!” Lizzy hollered, her lanky arms reaching for Joshua’s dirty fingers.

My muddied troupe traipsed back up the hill and spaced themselves evenly between the trees once more.

Ready……Set…..

 Hannah dropped to the ground with a happy thud before her big sister had even uttered go, and I reached for my phone once more, still intent on capturing the morning’s happiness.

But just as I shuffled across the hillside to get a better angle on the action, the words I’d read at dawn drifted from my heart to my head.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

I felt a gentle glitch in my spirit.  

Phone  poised for the perfect shot, I argued with my Maker. 

I AM being still.  I’m here. At the park. On a Saturday morning. With my children.

I left the dishes on the counter, the dust on the coffee table. It’s not like I’m racing wild through another day…

“Be still and know…”  

My heart quickened and I took a deep breath, knowing I would lose this fight if I continued to banter.

My spirit gave way to the noiseless conviction rising within me, and I tuned my heart to listen to the holy whisper in my ear. 

“I’m scripting this moment just for you. Don’t try to save it. Just savor it.” 

 It wasn’t an audible voice that prompted me to sit down on the damp grass and soak up the scene before me as my ratty sweatpants soaked up the morning dew. It was just as an unexplainable wooing, a sense deep inside of this mama’s heart that I was missing the life that is really life.  Missing the Life-Giver who was the center of the scene I was trying so desperately to capture.

So I slipped my phone back into my coat pocket, buried it beneath the crinkled tissues and wadded up gum wrappers. And I surrendered to the Lord’s quiet invitation to live the moment instead of trying to preserve it.

I closed my eyes and listened to my children’s happy shrieks, to the crunch of  the fallen leaves, to the trill of the birds in the tree-tops above.

  I relished the warmth of the sun on my cheeks, became acutely aware of the Son at my side.

And as I sat there, still, I  whispered prayers of thanks for the tangle of arms and legs rolling down that hill, for a life so real and abundant that it can’t be framed on a three-inch screen or captured in full on a status-update.

When I paused to peer through the window of gratitude rather through a camera’s lens, I realized that sometimes when I strive to hang on to a moment, I can miss it entirely.

Because the simple truth is this- God’s best  gifts can’t always be photo-shopped, pinned or posted.  

Sometimes they simply need to be framed with a prayer of praise and offered back to the Giver of all good things. 

*linking with  Jen at Rich Faith Rising,Jennifer for Tell His Story, Beth for Wedded Wednesdays and Jen for soli deo gloria