“Cherish the small,

Insignificant moments.

They become the

Lasting Memories.“

–Author Unknown–

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“The Leaning Post”

by Debbie Allen

The original host of well-known preschoolers’ educational T.V. show, “Blue’s Clues”, was a boyishly handsome 20-year-old, known by his young viewers as “Steve.” Steve just happened to be the only human being working in the midst of a totally animated set. He starred alongside of a famous animated, blue dog named, “Blue.” Blue and Steve were inseparable, especially when it came to solving mysteries. Without the help of Blue’s paw prints, which served as markers for the clues that Steve wrote down in his Handy-Dandy Notebook, and the participation of the preschoolers watching and helping Steve virtually, countless mysteries in life may never have been solved!  It was no secret that Steve was a multi-talented guy. Over the years, he also played his guitar, while singing and dancing his way into the hearts of children all around the world! My granddaughter, Makayla, 3 years-old at the time, was one of those children.  She had eyes for Steve from day one.  Her little pre-school heart liked Blue, too…but she expressed to me more than once that she LOVED Steve. I believed that…because Steve became the subject of endless conversations around the house, even when “Blue’s Clues” wasn’t on!

Makayla clung to Steve’s every word and action. One day when I was watching her, we sat down to watch an episode of “Blue’s Clues”. Steve walked onto the set carrying his guitar and wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and a paisley blue handkerchief around his neck.  Blue followed close behind wearing similar western garb.  After introducing themselves as Cowboy Steve and Cowgirl Blue… Steve’s fingers began to dance all over his guitar strings while Blue joined him in a round of howling, and singing out the song, “I Wanna Be a Cowgirl / Cowboy!” Makayla, enthralled by it all, looked over at me, her big brown eyes sparkling with excitement.  To my surprise, I watched her quickly scribble some squiggles down on a pink sticky note, run over and slap it on the wall, then disappear down the hallway. By the time she returned, she was wearing her mommy’s pink cowgirl hat and cowgirl boots and carrying a small guitar her daddy used when playing his video games. Though Makayla’s guitar had no strings, her fingers still managed to dance wildly on it, mimicking Steve’s every move and singing out loud, “I wanna be a cowgirl…oh yea…a COWGIRL!”

Though I was perfectly content to remain an anonymous applauder in Steve’s vast, virtual audience… before I knew it, “Cowgirl Makayla” was summoning “Cowgirl Grammie” up to the Livingroom stage.  She tossed me a plastic hairbrush shaped like a little microphone, and told me, “Steve says, Howl like Blue, Grammie!”   And so, I did just that…no questions asked!  Afterall, who was I to question a Super Star like Steve!

After this episode of Blue’s Clues was over, I turned the T.V. off, but Makayla couldn’t turn all the excitement off so easily. She continued to talk and talk about her sidekick, Steve, as if he were sitting in the room with us. She did set her guitar down, but she didn’t take her boots or her cowgirl hat off a-l-l day long.  Every time Makayla tilted her head forward, the hat slipped over her eyes. Each step she took in her cowgirl boots grew more and more cumbersome as the day went on. She must’ve fallen down and stood back up at least a hundred times that day. Her three-year-old legs weren’t designed to walk in cowgirl boots that swallowed her clear up to her hips. I was surprised she could walk at all; yet she persisted…determined to make them work. In her mind…probably Steve never took his boots off either!

After about four hours of sporting those weighty boots around the house, I turned around to find her leaning against the wall near the sticky note she’d placed there earlier.  With one hand up on the wall, she stood there motionless. Face forward, head down, with her cowgirl hat pressed tight against the wall, the only thing still moving on her was her eyes. I could see them toggling between that sticky note and her cowgirl boots.  Though the squiggles on the sticky note remain a mystery to me even now; they must’ve spoken something to Makayla’s heart, because after considering them for a brief time, I watched her do what I’d been trying to coax her to do all day.  She pulled the pink hat off, which had slipped over her eyes for the umpteenth time, and tossed it in my direction.  Then she wrestled both cowgirl boots down to the floor with great difficulty and painstakingly scooted out of them backwards!  For the first time today, her sweaty little toes were free to run and jump!  Without the hat flopping over her eyes, she could see clearly … but ironically, all she really wanted to do at this point, was close her eyes and take a nap.   I guess carrying the weight of something so much bigger than her around all day proved exhausting! As I went to fix her a snack…I watched Makayla run down the hallway once more.  Only this time when she returned, she was carrying a little ‘blanky’ and her favorite stuffed dog, ‘Woofy’.  With Woofy on the scene, I was pretty sure that both Blue and Steve had left the building…at least until the next day!  By the time I returned to the living room with Makayla’s snack, she was curled up under her blanky on one end of the couch, holding tight to Woofy; both of them f-a-s-t asleep!

 “Sweet dreams, sweetest cowgirl” I whispered down into her ear. …z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z…

 Though many years have passed now, this particular day still holds one of my most treasured memories with Makayla. Though she and I shared many adventures like this one over the years, this escapade stands out because of the one moment I happened to capture on my camera (see photo above).  When I look at that snapshot today…I don’t just see a tired little girl sporting weighty cowgirl boots, and a floppy hat.  That snapshot tells a much bigger story to my heart now. I see that picture today, and remember a determined little cowgirl, and how she unknowingly, reflected back to her Grammie’s heart; the story of how God transforms the ‘walls’ we find ourselves up against in life, into ‘leaning posts’ for our souls.

God didn’t promise any of His children an easy journey in life, but sometimes we, like Cowgirl Makayla, make it even harder on ourselves by choosing to step into big boots we were never meant to walk in. Three-year-old Makayla managed to creatively imagine her way out of both her boots and her troubles that day… with only a little help from the squiggles scribbled on a pink sticky-note. However, in our real-life adventures, this method won’t work for you and I. Sticky-note theology just doesn’t hold up in this world…only God’s Word proves to be forever trustworthy!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

You and I must come to the place in the midst of our own troubled walks, where we give-up on our own ways of thinking regarding life; and discover how much higher God’s Words and His Ways are for us than our own. Like the photo of my favorite little Cowgirl still reminds me even today… it’s when our souls finally grow weary enough to surrender whatever has been weighing us down in our walks for so long; that a Loving God, who hears our cries even before we open our mouths, steps in to transform the walls we find ourselves up against, into something beautiful! God’s One and Only Son, Jesus, willingly, becomes the Leaning-Post for our troubled souls! He is that Place of Solace where, having come to an end of ourselves, we can choose to fully trust in the only One Who will never fail us.  Leaning hard into Jesus’ Presence, we are invited to give Him all our heaviness in life, and in return receive His Love… Grace… Forgiveness… Salvation… Restoration… Rest…and Hope for our weary souls. The Leaning-Post is our only Safe-Place in life… when we find ourselves walking the troubled trails that God’s Word guarantees we will encounter in this broken world! Why not consider trading the instability of the ‘walls’ we find ourselves up against in life…for the enduring foundation of ‘The Leaning Post’…Jesus. Unlike so many things in this life…He will never fail you!

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God continually invites us into His Word and Ways…through them He entwines our hearts with His Heart, and His Higher Purposes for our lives.

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Take it from Cowgirl Makayla: As we choose to give-up on the scribbled, squiggles written on pink sticky-notes in this world; and learn to pick-up and trust-in God’s Word instead…over time our walk in life begins to make sense!