Why We Stop Seeing Wonder

When was the last time you picked up a piece of sidewalk chalk? In this episode, Charlotte Edwards reflects on a colorful sidewalk, childhood imagination, creativity, joy, and the freedom to create without striving for perfection. Discover how embracing childlike wonder can help you reconnect with delight, faith, and the simple moments that make life meaningful. This encouraging episode will inspire you to slow down, play, and plant small seeds of joy that can transform your week.

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Transcript

0:01

Hey, friend. Welcome to Send a Seed. I'm Charlotte Edwards, and I believe small seeds create big impact. Each week, we'll plant one. Let's dig in. This morning I took Petey and George for our usual walk, and up ahead something caught my eye. And as I got closer, I couldn't help but smile. One section of sidewalk had almost disappeared, and their driveway was covered with every color imaginable, reds, greens, blues, purples Every color under the sun. There was a giant rainbow, a mushroom, a fairy, a butterfly with one wing that was much bigger than the other, a purple dog covered in green polka dots, flowers that somehow grew sideways in zigzags, and a sun with big sunglasses Nothing matched and nothing stayed inside the lines. Nothing was trying to be perfect. It was simply a child's imagination just spilling out all over the driveway and onto the sidewalk. And honestly, it made my day. I sat there for several minutes just looking at all the pictures and imagining the kids drawing and having fun. I realized something. I honestly can't remember the last time I held a piece of sidewalk chalk. My son's 19 and he's getting ready to go back to college. And there was a time when our driveway looked a lot like that sidewalk. We'd, would draw roads for all his little Matchbox cars. We'd write silly messages, hopscotch We color all different animals and scenes for, superheroes, a lot of construction scenarios We would just sit out there for hours coloring till there was hardly any gray left somewhere along the way, that season quietly ended. Not with a big announcement. Just one summer, we never pulled the chalk back out. As I kept walking I thought about something. Children don't create the way that adults do. They don't stop and wonder if they're good enough. They don't compare their rainbow to the one next door or erase the crooked butterfly because one wing is too big. They don't worry if the dog should really be purple. They probably think it's really cool that the dog's purple with green spots. They just keep coloring. They may grab another color, tell another story. They make another masterpiece, not because it's perfect, but because creating is joyful. That's what struck me the most. Every one of these children knew something adults tend to forget. The rain's coming. Tomorrow's thunderstorm could easily wash every bit of it away, and they drew anyway. They didn't create because it could last. They created because today was just a good day to go outside and color. Somewhere along the way, we started believing everything has to accomplish something. If we're gonna paint, it should be good enough to hang on a wall. If we're gonna write, maybe we should publish it. If we're gonna bake, maybe it should look Instagram worthy. If we're gonna spend an afternoon doing something, it probably ought to be productive. We quietly convince ourselves that if it won't last long or if it won't lead to something, it isn't worth doing, I don't think it's an accident that children can teach us so much. Sometimes I wonder if they understand something we've simply forgotten jesus once said that unless we become like little children, we miss something important. I've always thought about that in terms of faith, but maybe it's also about delight, about imagination, about creating simply because it's good, finding joy in the process instead of only the outcome. We've grown so focused on producing that we've forgotten how to play. So here's your seed for the week. Go buy a bucket of sidewalk chalk. If you have kids or grandkids, invite them outside. And if you don't, draw anyway. Write an encouraging message. Draw a ridiculously crooked flower. Color a rainbow that doesn't stay inside the lines. You could even draw the purple dog with green polka dots. Create something the rain will wash away, because maybe the point was never for it to last. It was simply to remember what joy feels like That's your seed. Now go plant something good