Do It Again
If you have children or if you have ever been around a child or if you have ever been a child then you probably know the importance of repeating things. The parents out there are already triggered after one sentence. They’re all having flashbacks to watching Frozen constantly for a year, or Encanto this past year...and still! Please...don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no! Let’s think about bedtime instead...yes, bedtime. Bedtime was a sweet time, right? Kids get all snuggly at bedtime and want the same bedtime story or for you to read the same book, and they get upset if you don’t give them a hug and kiss before they go to sleep. Awww, that’s better. Repetition and routine are important to kids. It makes them feel safe. And it also conveys the fact that they really enjoy something.
The same is true of play. When kids find a game they like they will want to play it again and again and again. I remember when four square became the big game in 4th grade. It was all we did at recess for weeks. We would talk about it at lunch and then sprint out to get the best spots on the sidewalk for our sacred game. Then there was the obsession with climbing on top of the monkey bars, which I’m told they don’t even make for playgrounds anymore due to all the injuries, but kids LOVE them. The Star Wars game in the pine trees on the other side of the soccer field where we imagined ourselves on the forest moon of Endor...the tall swings where we would go as high as we could and then jump off for that brief moment of weightlessness...the huge soccer games where the entire grade would play...multiple versions of tag... cops and robbers, etc., etc., etc. All of these games had their seasons when it was all we did for a stretch of time, recess after recess.
My kids are just the same. Unsurprisingly, Star Wars continues to be a major source of inspiration in their games. One of them is always Rey Skywalker or Padme Amidala or Jyn Erso (if you don’t know these names you have a lot of watching to do). Kate never really got into Star Wars as a kid, but she married a guy who watched A New Hope (the first one) religiously for his entire life...I mean childhood...no, I mean life. Being my daughters meant that they really didn’t have a choice in the matter. But, they love horses too, which is Kate’s thing, and we watch plenty of horsey movies repeatedly on family movie night, so her influence is very present as well.
Our girls love pretending, being spies, superheroes, saving the day on their magnificent horse, etc...just like all of us did. Sometimes the games are simpler. Wrestling Dad is always a fan favorite. Recently, it has been trying to dodge a bouncing ball while jumping on the trampoline. Yes, we have a trampoline...like the monkey bars it is an insurance nightmare. But in our defense this thing has protective netting all around it. They have absolutely no chance of ever experiencing that wonderful sensation of having your leg slip past the flappy suggestion of padding and getting terribly scraped and pinched in the springs. And they’d have to be double-bounced 8 feet into the air to clear the netting on that thing. Flashback: I can still remember flying through the air around the age of 10 when my best friend’s much older brother (read in his 20s, who should never have been allowed to bounce with us and who also happens to be a pastor now) laughingly double-bounced me off the neighbor’s trampoline. There was no net...just the lawn...which back then we thought perfectly sufficient for safety purposes. It’s not like it’s concrete...the rationalization went...and I didn’t break anything. Sure, I couldn’t breathe for what felt like an eternity, but I recovered. And before you knew it, I was back on that trampoline for another go.
As if trampolines weren’t dangerous enough, we love to cover ours with dish soap and spray the girls with the hose. We’re terrible parents.
Repetition in play is important, and we don’t outgrow it. When we find something that we enjoy we want to keep doing it. Especially if it is with someone we think important, someone we love and respect. It makes us feel valued, important, known. In his book, The Soul of Desire, Dr. Curt Thompson says that we all need to feel “seen, soothed, safe, and secure” (31-33). From the moment we come out of the womb we need to feel these things. They are essential parts of attachment for us in our development as children and continue to be in our relationships as adults. The lack in one area deeply impacts the others and affects our ability to flourish as people. He writes:
“We first must, literally, be seen across the entire breadth of our emotional condition. When we are in distress, we need to be comforted, to be soothed. When we are soothed, we develop a sense of safety, of confidence in our bodies and in our environment, both physically and relationally” (31). “These three needs...make way for the fourth: to be secure. Security is about being able, in the face of being seen, soothed, and safe, to move away from our relational base and step out to take the risk of new adventure, whether that is across the crib, across the room, or across the country.” “Our need to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure never stops. The only question is who is providing those experiences for us” (32).
Repetition in play is a part of these “four s’s,” and if you engage in repetitive play with children my bet is that you will see the fruit of security bear out in the fact that they want to take the game farther and farther. They want to explore the limits knowing that if they make a mistake or if something goes wrong they “have a place to return to where [they] will once again be seen, soothed, and safe” (32). A parent (read an attentive and loving parent) knows their child needs this constant reassurance. They do not tell their child, “I love you.” once and then expect that to be good for the rest of their life. “I told you I loved you when you four.” No! They know their child needs to hear it every day multiple times a day. The same is true between spouses. You can never hear the fact that you are loved too much.
Our relationship with the Lord is no different. We need repetition, and he knows it. We need to hear his promises again and again and again. We need to hear them every day “again for the first time,” as one of my professors and mentors liked to say. Why? Because of our sin and our enemy. We have an accuser and our own inner monologue that is repeating another message to us all the time...one of shame, condemnation, fear, and worthlessness. Belittling us in all we do. This is why weekly church services exist and Christian blogs and podcasts and quirky YouTube videos of barbies telling the gospel stories (Yay BETSY BIBLE)! We keep coming back because we need to hear that we are loved and forgiven...that God sees us, knows our pain and brokenness (seen) and forgives us, loves us completely without condition (soothed) and will never ever let us go (safe).
This is the truth about is in Jesus Christ. This is what it means for God’s love to be “steadfast.” It is constant, repeated, never-ending. This is why the Bible was written down, so that we would be reminded, so that the accusing voices would be drowned out and silenced by God’s grace for us in Jesus Christ repeated again and again and again. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). “If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). “You must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Peter 4:8). “Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you” (Deut. 31:6).
Here at Dandelion we will keep on repeating it.
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