Six Simple Words

The girls have fairly large white boards in their new rooms. They love to play school all the time and use them a lot. Money well spent if you are pondering getting one. One of the fun outcomes of having those boards is our nightly ritual of writing something on each board before the kids go to bed. Sometime I write; sometimes Chief writes… sometimes both… sometimes the girls write to each other. The girls love to read what we wrote before they go to bed or when they wake up, if we do it after they are asleep. It has been a really easy way to encourage them, give advice, joke, practice math facts or whatever. They love it and we do too!

One night a few weeks ago I wrote on Soccer Girl's board. She was really tired from lots of activities – soccer practice, speed and agility training (holy smokes!), play dates, a sleep over and a soccer tournament. She was a little overwhelmed and just plain exhausted. I wrote a few things and then wrote…”remember to rest, read, play, pray, listen and love this week”. I had not started out writing with those thoughts in my mind, but as I wrote rest and read (trying to encourage her to lay low and not be on the go so much), the other words just flowed out of my hand… to the lime green marker I was using… to the white board.

Now several weeks later, those six words are still on her board, written up in a corner in small print. I noticed the other day that she had now underlined them. I have thought of those six words a lot since then. I think they are brilliant, if I do say so myself. Each is so simple in meaning, but has so much impact.

Rest… everyone needs true rest from life’s busyness; time to themselves, just for themselves.
Read… there is so much to learn, adventures to take and humor in books. So much can be gained by making time to read.
Play… taking the time to truly play and enjoy life does a lot for your mind and body.
Pray… so much peace and focus comes from praying.
Listen… we all can learn so much more if we stop talking and stop our brains to just listen to others.
Love… how much better would this world be if we let others know how much we love them? Show them with your actions and words (and the thoughts in your head).

So while I may have written those six words down for my daughter, I think I also wrote those six words for myself. Words to live by…six simple words.