Playing with Thomas

 

 “Dad,” Elise said.  “I want you to play Thomases with me!”

 For the uninformed, Thomas is a sentient tank engine that runs on the tracks on the island of Sodor.  While the real Thomas lives far away (I guess in the United Kingdom), we have plastic railroad tracks and AA battery operated engines that run on them. 

 Elaine was out running errands and Elise and I were manning the fort together.  “Let me finish washing these dishes,” I told her.  “Then, we can play with trains.”

 “OK, Dad,” Elise said.  “My dollies really want to play with Thomas.  Hamber [her doll Amber] says that Thomas is her favorite engine!”

 I finished washing the dishes and we went upstairs to play with trains.  This mostly consisted of me putting tracks together and Elise watching me do so.  Then, we ran various trains around the tracks.

 It didn’t exactly thrill me to watch the trains meander around the tracks.

 I was getting tired of this.  “Shall we stop playing with trains?”  I asked in a hopeful voice.

 “No!” Elise said, quite firmly.  “Hamber wants to keep playing with trains.”

 “How about if we read a book together?”

 Elise thought for a moment.  “Yes,” she said, at last.  “We can read a book together.”

 So, we went downstairs, and I began to read a variety of books.  We read “Popcorn” by Frank Asch.  We read “Jonah’s Trash… God’s Treasure” by Joel Anderson.  We read several Richard Scarry books.

 At the end of each one, I gently suggested that Elise could do some playing on her own.  Each time, she demanded that I read more and so on and on we went until finally, as my voice gave out, Elaine arrived back at home.

 The morning had passed, and the clock showed that it was time to eat lunch.  As we sat down to eat, I felt a little frustrated.  I hadn’t accomplished anything that morning.  I had just put together train tracks that would be taken apart in a few days and read books that my daughter has heard twenty times before.

 I’m sure plenty of parents feel this way.  They clean and wash clothes and do endless tasks that only need to be repeated – sometimes hours after they are completed.  Their children want to play the same thing over and over or read the same books until they have them memorized.  

 I am afraid that the biggest issue for me is simply that I am not good at discerning what is valuable.  Jesus told a story in Matthew 13 about a man who finds a pearl that he recognizes as immensely valuable and then goes out and sells everything he has to purchase that gem.

 This story was talking about the importance of giving up all to follow after Jesus.  At the same time, the important thing in the parable is that the man recognized the value of the gem.

 In much the same way, I need to recognize what is valuable in my life.  Of course, at the top of the list is my relationship with Jesus, but other things are important too.  Nurturing relationships and getting to know my children are extremely high on the list of things that are worthwhile for me to do, even if they won’t ever get me into a “Who’s who” list of important people.

 If we were a little better at recognizing what is really valuable in life, our priorities would probably shift quite a bit.  Maybe we would even come to the place of understanding that the benefit of playing with our children isn’t playing with trains or reading books.  The benefit is spending time with some of the most important people in our lives and building relationships that will last, even when their childhood is gone.