mountain sprite coke (repost)

It's been a while since I posted a blog, so I thought I'd share some "Kenzisms". She's almost 4 years old, and like most kids that age, she says exactly what's on her mind. The innocence she posseses is amazing. There's no question that is too embarassing or silly for her to ask, no comment to blunt.
I do try to teach her not to be rude, but if she has a question about someone or something, I don't get upset with her. I just have to realize that she's a little girl who is exploring and learning about life.
On our way thru New Mexico, travelling to Arizona, Michael and I saw a mountain that looked like a giant breast. "Boob" is our word of choice, so I whispered to him that I thought it looked like a big boob. She didn't hear us, but as we got closer, she yelled out "Mommy, look at that mountain! It looks like a big boob!" We just cracked up. She also pointed out the fact that a lot of the men she saw between Texas and Arizona looked like "Handy Manny", a character on Disney's new show with the same title. Basically, he's a Hispanic handy man who can fix anything, and his tools talk and help him "fix it right". I had to explain to her that in the part of the U.S. that we're in, there are a lot of Hispanic people, and that they're not all carpenters/handy men. That was kind of a hard one for her, but I blame that on Disney, for giving kids a stereotype early on. She doesn't understand the whole race thing, she just knows that people are different colors, and some "sound funny". Our neighbors, an "African-American" family are "brown people" in her eyes. And Indian or Hispanic are of course "light brown". I don't want to make color or outward appearance an issue for her, so if she asks about someone, I just explain that God made everyone to look different, but on the inside we're all the same. We're all a little part of His huge masterpiece, a work of art that has no limits.
In teaching her this lesson, I've learned that I too need to see people thru God's eyes. I'll never be able to see the beauty in mankind that He does, but I'm trying. The thing about it is, we all need to do this. We need to take off the glasses of judgment, and put on the corrective lenses of Jesus Christ! While He was here on Earth, He literally became one of us. The pictures we see make Him a handsome man, with a chiseled jaw-line, and the body of a male model. I'm sure He wasn't an out of shape slob, because He worked hard with Joseph in the carpentry shop, and He didn't have Krispy Kremes before He went to the temple to learn from his rabbi. But the masses of people that followed Him weren't there because He was the Brad Pitt of His day, one of the "beautiful people" that our society obsesses over. They came because He looked beyond their faults. He didn't make hasty judgements upon seeing the crippled bodies, the mis-shapen features of the little child born with a birth defect or the Gentiles, who were lower than dogs by Jewish standards. He just loved them with a perfect love. One that we should strive for.
The title of this blog has a little story behind it. Mackenzie is trying to be so grown up, and wants what her Daddy has to drink when we go out. Obviously we're not going to let her drink Coca-Cola, but she can have Sprite. She started calling it "Sprite Coke". While we were on our trip, Michael got a Sierra Mist to drink. She was sad because he didn't get "Sprite Coke". I tried to explain to her that Sierra Mist is like Sprite, but she couldn't grasp that whole idea. So, since Sierra Mist has a mountain on the label, she decided that it was "Mountain Sprite Coke", and with mountains surrounding Tucson, she thought that's how they made their "Sprite Coke". It made her happy, so we went along with it. We stopped to get gas, and her Papa told her he'd get her a drink. She wanted "Mountain Sprite Coke", but they didn't have any, so he got her "Sprite Coke". She was so heartbroken. I told her that she was making Papa sad, because he bought her a drink, and that was all they had. He knew she'd be disappointed, but at that moment, when he saw there was not any Sierra Mist, he did what he could, and gave her Sprite. He could have just left the store without buying her anything, but he did what he could, and tried to make her happy. It makes me think of how we view life. We can have what we think is the best life, full of happiness and joy, but then something comes along that's a little better (or at least we think it is because someone told us it's better) and we just have to have it. We step it up to the next level, and then living the old way doesn't even seem like an option. After we get all bent out of shape, because we have to live the "old way", it hits us. If we'd never seen the newer stuff, we'd be happy with what God had blessed us with.
So the next time you see something newer, bigger, or better, ask yourself this. Will it make me happier? Will it make an impact on who I am in Christ? Jesus doesn't tell us that we can't have nice things, in fact, I think it makes Him smile when we are happy. But we don't have to use posessions to gain happiness. True happiness comes in the most basic form. Falling in love with Jesus, and treating others with the same love and compassion that He does. Do you really need "Mountain Sprite Coke" to make you happy? Or will the goodness of your first love, "Sprite Coke" be enough.
Psalm 106
1 Praise the Lord!
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever. NLT