I recall a recent conversation with my children while seated around the dinner table about my favorite things I did when I was a child.

Conversations around the dinner table can be quite revealing and are now one of my favorite things to do . . . mostly because we don't get to have too many of them these days because of the children's or my hectic schedule.

They are always scurrying off to track practice, Boy Scouts, band practice or some other extra curricular event.

The crux of the discussion was about the hard times . . . when I was growing up (the classic discussion where we try to make our children realize how hard our childhood was compared to theirs . . . ) We didn't have all of those above listed activities to keep us busy. We had very little free time and we knew better than to complain about our assigned chores.

Today, in these 'modern' times we own a riding lawn mower, and yet we have to beg and plead with our two teenagers to mow the lawn . . . we have an automatic dishwasher, and have to bribe or threaten to get the thing loaded and hooked up to the water faucet!

We have an automatic washer and dryer, so clothes don't have to be hung up on the line, just taken out of the washer and put in the dryer and the dial set for the correct drying time!

My children couldn't believe that my favorite thing to do when I was a child (it was actually a treat) was to play out in the rain.

Just that . . . play out in the rain.

We would hide under the canoe in our yard and pretend we were in a cave . run our head under the spout of the house and pretend we were under a waterfall in Hawaii oh, the possibilities were endless!

My children actually laughed they couldn't understand how something that simple could bring me so much joy. Their imaginations were shorted out . . I think their imaginations are hooked into the television set these days.

We had a television set when I grew up, and I'm just 41 years old. We just weren't allowed to watch but very few programs . . . Gilligan's Island was one I distinctly being allowed to watch and I Love Lucy, was another.

What a far cry from what we now see on the television screen.

Life today wants to cloud everything we do with busyness and complexities of 'stuff'. I know we've heard about 'stuff' before and it's one of my Mother's favorite pet peeves… "stuff."

But you know, growing up as a child without all of the niceties and modern amenities, (less stuff) life was more simple. And we did have fun, in spite of what my children might think!

Christ's message to us is simple, and we can even have fun living it! That's what is so hard to some of us to really grasp, I think . . . just how simple the love and grace of Jesus Christ really is.

Who tends to throw us the curves in life? Satan loves to throw them at us the way he slipped around the tree...headed straight for Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wants to confuse us with all of the non-important issues by slinking into the everyday issues of our life and cause trouble.

Satan tempted Jesus with simple, everyday life issues and He kept it simple. He constantly referred to the Father and His love.

Satan doesn't want us to reflect on those things. He wants us to clutter our lives with other 'important' things such as our religion, denominational, racial and cultural barriers.

He wants us to forget all about the simple things . . . about how Jesus loves us . . . He died for us . . . He saved us . . . and all He asks of us in return is that we believe in Him. How simply marvelous. How simply wonderful! And how simply miraculous! How simply simple!

So if it was simple enough for Him . . . it's simple enough for me. Let's keep it simple, okay? It's a jungle out there and Satan is waiting to slink around our tree of life.

Simply and with much love . . .