Earlier this week I had to complete some of the usual adult requirements of life- paying bills, grocery shopping, getting the oil changed for my car. I pulled into the parking lot and looked up. Snow was pouring from the sky like powdered sugar onto a funnel cake. My thoughts immediately brightened- SNOW!- but back to reality, back to getting things marked off the to-do list. Back to “adulting” (seriously, when did the world decide it’s cool to make nouns verbs?)

The car was settled in the garage and I in the lobby of the business. The news was “blah blahing” in the background and I stared at the wall thinking about everything I had to do, all my stresses.

“Snoow, SNOOOOWWW, snoow.” *giggle* “Snow, snow, PENGUIN, penguin, snow” *gigglegiggle* A sweet, silly, little voice of innocence broke my thoughts. I turned to my right and my field of vision was filled with the sight of a big, chocolate-brown, slightly toothless, smiling, bright-eyed, face full of sunshine and bouncy curls of brown hair- the sweetest little girl, so filled with life and innocence. In return for her filling my heart with a little more sunshine, I gave her a wink, smile, and giggle back, too.

I turned back, watching the news. “Murder, death, suicide, major drops in the stock market” were all that flooded my ears. I heard her mother grunt and sharply inhale as she saw the stock market numbers. Looking down at her daughter, she sighed, “You giggle because you don’t know what that means.”

The juxtaposition slammed me in the heart. In life, as humans, when do we stop being that little girl? I was her once, not a care in the world. What changed? What changes us? Was there a particular date? An event? Or is it a gradual, slow, wearing down of our spirit?

Take a minute today, think on it, and be her again. Give a little giggle or song about snow, smile at a stranger, do something nice, praise God. Whatever you do, do something to bring a little more sunshine into this cloudy world.