The littles are watching.

Last Sunday evening the ladies at church held a baby shower for a young woman who is pregnant with her first baby. She is due January 1st, and has a belly out to here. I was in charge of organizing everything - decorations, food, game, devotion. Usually the in-charge person asks someone else to do the devotion, but since I was behind in everything except breathing, I did it myself.

I started in Titus 2:3-5, where every sermon ever preached to women begins. I was trying to get to the part that says "to love their children" but I got stuck on the first three words: The aged women.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks - I AM AN AGED WOMAN.

Holy moly! How did that happen? Just yesterday I was the one sitting in the rocking chair, belly out to here, waiting to open gift bags filled with onesies and tiny booties. How did I get to be the older woman with a little gray hair (ok, maybe more than a little), standing at the podium sharing what wisdom my brain has been able to hang on to?

But as I spoke, I looked around the room full of ladies and saw many heads grayer than mine, many faces more wrinkled. And I realized I am in a Middle Place. Not exactly like Kelly Corrigan's, but definitely in one of those in-between places in life. I am at once the aged woman and the young woman referred to in Titus 2. And you know what? That's a pretty comfortable place to be. I didn't freak out when I turned 40, and I think I'll be ok with turning 50 in a few years.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about a family we are friends with in Tennessee. They have three girls and a boy, and their girls adore my daughters. My Deb, Leah, and Abbie were teenagers when we lived there, and their Valorie, Rebekah, and Judith were ages 7, 5, and 3 at the time. The little girls just couldn't get enough of the bigger ones.

After we had moved away, we were visiting in Tennessee one time and went to our friends' home for dinner. The mom told me that, like some little girls play house, hers play "The Sargent girls."

Seriously. Each one chooses which Sargent girl she wants to be that day, and they "play Sargent girls."

My daughters were dumbfounded. Humbled. Speechless. Reminded that someone is always watching what they do, observing how they act, listening to what they say. And those little people want to be just like them.

I want to live my life so that someone wants to be just like me, and so God will be pleased with both of us.

Be thankful ~

Karen