Having fun with children

Have you ever heard of "Jacob's Ladder"?  Until last week, I though "Jacob's Ladder" was only a Sunday school song for children.  I don't remember reading or hearing a Bible story about "Jacob's Ladder"' but I do remember the song - at least the first stanza of it.

A few days ago my grand daughter came over with a wooden toy  - a "Jacob's Ladder".   It just looked like a short stack of blocks to me; but then, she began to flip it and count the blocks that seemed to never stop rotating.  Then - to my amazement, she held one block in the air and began to flip it back and forth which created a cascading effect on all the blocks that followed. 

I asked her if I could try; and the blocks simply did not like me.  because they did not flip continuously when I tried to count with them and they certainly did not cascade when I held one block in air and flipped it back and forth.  My cousin took the blocks and made them cascade.  My Dad took the blocks and made them cascade; but they did not cascade for me.  For the life of me; I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

Then my three year old grand daughter came to my rescue.  After several attempts (and with my Dad's subtle help) they were able to show me how to make the blocks cascade.  It was so exciting to me that I finally succeeded in that task.  But what was more fun was my grand daughters excitement as she excitedly screamed  - "wow, you did it grand ma - good job!"  That genuine bit of attention from her made me feel like I had single-handedly taken down King Kong.

My grand daughter was so excited that she was successfully able to teach me something new.  She went on and tried to show some others in the room how to work the blocks.  This morning as I was reminiscing over that event - it occurred to me that some of the success that we achieve in life is not for us as much as it is for others.  I have lived to be a grand mother without knowing about that toy; and I've done just fine without it. 

However, successfully teaching me how to use that toy gave my grand daughter a since of pride and confidence that I had not seen in her before.  That precious little princess who normally keeps her distance from people she doesn't interact with daily gained a level of courage and fearlessness as she confidently attempted to help others benefit from her new found skill - teaching.

That's the way it is - some of the success we will achieve in life may seem small and almost insignificant to us; but it may make a world of difference to and for others.  Success does matter!