We as adults forget and sometimes become flustered at how slowly children think as they learn. I have seen parents get upset as their kids sluggishly realize how something works and impede the family progression through the day. Grownups often forget how life looks from the eyes of the innocent while the neophyte inside of the child shines. Kids’ creativity continually causes cultivation proliferation.

The perspective of children should teach us all how to look at things with an innocent mind. At times we need to throw out our presumptive predilections and see things through the eyes of wonder and excitement of a child. I do not see several boxes in a stack, but I see the castle of Camelot to be defended by the Knights of the Round Table although the table is square. It is essential to let the kids be kids as they could unexpectedly invent the next big thing as they play, grow, and learn.

When I was a young child, my school went to visit COSI or Center of Science and Industry. We wanted to see what we could learn and participate in as everything was hands-on at this science center. I remember how we went to the mining exhibit to experience all aspects of the life of a miner. Eight kids at a time piled into this elevator to travel down many floors. I knew that the elevator was going down because there was a window that showed the walls were traversing towards topside. When we got off of the elevator exiting from the opposing door, we were in the deep dark depths of the city.

COSI is very good at sparking imaginations and causing kids creative minds to go wild. With my adult brain, I now understand that the walls that I could see through the elevator windows were on a revolving roller. I comprehend that the elevator was not going anywhere, and we exited from the opposite side of this permanent portmanteau. The adults in the lives of these children should be encouraging this ingenious innovation from these mini minds as often as we can.

The Vacation Bible School theme this year is Into the Wild while I’m looking at it from a child’s perspective. I walked into the woods with my friends and met some people who worked at the basecamp. They took us through tall trees that stood as high as the building where my mommy works. I saw a bridge that looked like it was hovering over a river with fish in it that sits just after the waterfalls. There were lots of trees and animals all around making everything like a real forest. We could see the sunlight as it peeked through the leaves and tree branches that lit our path to the next area.

Our journey took us first to a new part of the woods that was so big that a million of us fit at one time. Although there were trees all around us, some of the staff had music instruments that they played loudly. The lady in charge taught us a lot of great songs. This music made us dance to music and act silly and have lots of fun. These songs reminded us that Jesus loves us all even my big sister, who could not come to VBS this year. I just want to live here because I am having so much fun.

Next, we went to several different rooms for Storytime, crafts, games, and even ministries. VBS reminds us all always to be good people do good things and that Jesus loves us. After all of the fun things, we went back to listen to more merry music before our parents picked us up.

As parents, we teach our kids that all-so-famous song that goes “This little light of mine I’m going to let it shine.” The adults need to remember how famous that song truly is to the growth of children. It is essential that we feed their creative minds because we could be looking at the next genius. When you limit their creativity, you could be smothering the light of the next Einstein, Beethoven, Bill Gates, or even Steve Jobs. The history books are full of people who as children were told that they would never amount to anything, and then they proved the nay-sayers wrong.

Play is the highest form of research.

I received a text telling me of their imminent arrival in approximately thirty minutes. Following a long half hour wait, I heard car doors shutting and voices getting close to my entryway. I whipped my wheels around to answer that famous ding-dong that soon followed as they promptly pushed the doorbell. After their arduous and adventurous eighteen hour peregrination, they walked in carrying fast-casual eats. They brought a big brown bag brimming with bulky burrito bowls from the famous Chipotle down the street.

We all three sat at the kitchen table dining and discussing their challenging trip. The conversation soon turned into a detailed description of moms schedule for the eleven-day visit. I see them once per year and share the time with the seemingly millions of friends that they have here in Columbus. It is always essential for me to get in where I fit in.

I cannot see causing me to reach out for help, but there is no one. The light is being blocked by the magnificently majestic amounts of food that they have brought. Like when a cloud blocks the sun, I can only see a few things, and these items are the only ones that I can reach.

For the first few days, my mom continually cooked meals in the crockpot to freeze. For example, on day one, she made enough chili for a family of four with two growing boys. She prepared it and then put it into Ziploc hard containers for the deep freeze. Mom allowed them to cool on the counter and then placed them in the icebox. She then washed the crockpot by hand and prepared to cook something the next day. She is filling my freezer to the brim with plenty of bean soup, chili, chicken noodle soup, and spaghetti.

The meals that mom has been cooking leaves an amazingly awesome aroma in the air that no TV dinner or cold sandwich could. I wake up the next morning, and this fantastic aromatic breeze still lingers and covers the smell from my air freshener.

“This place looks like you just moved in a week ago,” my mom pointed out. I quickly said that I did move in a week ago plus two months and then add a full year. Here is the thing I am a guy and tend to put very little concern into how my environment looks. Do not misunderstand me because I keep my place very picked up and leave nothing on the floor. I mean I have four wheels on my wheelchair, but I cannot go four wheeling or off-road in my house. Most days, I am focusing all of my time and energy on one of two things, either water and land therapy or this blog.

My mom and Phil helped me hang some pictures on the walls and a valence on my window. She gave me plenty of great design ideas to give my house that comfortable lived in look. I can continue to work on these creative concepts even when she goes home. However, since the internal image of my house sits so low on my priority list, those concepts will not likely come to fruition. Not to mention that at a thousand miles away from my mom’s enthusiastic encouragement it holds little sway over my follow through.

No road is long with good company.

My buddy came over with a pizza so that we could have a conversation and mastication. We talked about many things, including how my wheelchair life had begun a few weeks earlier. I was deeply discouraged and disheartened at my new station in life, so this was the focus of our colloquy. I allowed my intensely irrational imagination to run wild on how my existence in a wheelchair would look. My profoundly creative brain showed me a purgatory on earth. This perdition would have roads made of gravel and friends and family on a sandy beach that I could not traverse.

3.6 million people in the world over the age of 15 use wheelchairs to assist in their mobility. However, the idea of being stuck in this seated contraption permanently unsettled me to the core. It made me more nervous than boot camp for the Marine Corps. I lived alone in a house that was built in the early 1950s, and it was not remotely wheelchair accessible. I did not have the mandatory moving money to make my residence better. I could see that this new wheelchair life would be a constant uphill battle deeply embedded with my blood, sweat, and tears.

I still did not have a way to get in and out of my house using this new wheeled mechanism. My friend happened to know the right person at his church to ask for help with this radically ramping riddle. There were some minor back and forth conversations, trying to figure out exactly what was needed for the requirements of my house. More importantly, we had to wait for winter to end before they could begin construction on my new elevation inclination. Building this big beautiful bridge took four gentlemen an entire weekend to construct.

My friend, who had been in the Air Force, realized that the best thing that he could do for me was to challenge me. He told me that if I did a 5k race in my chair that he would walk with me, and together we would conquer this beast. This new goal of mine had me searching for a 5k race in Columbus that would fit my needs. This monster had to have a few things like a first aid lodge, bathrooms, and a place at the halfway point to stop and eat lunch. Apparently, for a 3.1-mile race, they do not include those amenities, so I settled for a first aid tent and banana at the end of the race.

Once my new elevated entry was complete, it was time to start training for this complex competition. I knew that I needed a way to track my distance without using a paper map and a ruler. Then I learned the true meaning behind “there is an app for that” as I found a plethora of distance tracking apps. Once the user presses the start button on their smartphone, several things happen. The phone uses GPS and tracks to within twenty-five feet of its fixed location. I found an app that I liked, then I downloaded and set up an account to tally my trip totals.

On the first distance trip, I planned on conquering the world or at least traversing a few miles. Sadly it did not take me long to realize that I did not yet have the muscles that a race like this demanded. On day one, I completed an excruciatingly exhausting 0.2 miles. I now understood that this training would take more time than I thought and there were now only four months until race day.

Every day I wheeled around my neighborhood and watched my distance grow regularly. I met some perfectly pleasant people, and I explained my 5k goal. While I trekked around the community, I celebrated every milestone that I achieved. I saw several people frequently as some walked dogs, and others walked part of my practice trip alongside me. My circuitous route took me around a school several times and all through my neighborhood. I watched as nearly every day and more quickly than I expected my distance crept higher and higher.

The night before the 5k, my friend again brought pizza to palaver and discuss the next day’s procedures. He reminded me to get plenty of sleep that night and to eat somethingin the morning not too heavy. We talked about when he would pick me up and what I would wear for this 3.1-mile marathon.

Four months after starting this dynamic distance drill was game day, it was time to put up or shut up. Now was when I needed to put my big boy pants on and show the world, or at least those that showed up, what I could do. My nerves were shaking more than a guitar string playing heavy metal music.

I spoke with the correct person and requested to start the race early. I was in a wheelchair and move slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter, so I wanted to get an early launch. I was hoping for an hour head start but was allowed to leave just after the kids and ten minutes before the runners.

The race was excessively, excruciatingly, exhaustingly long at 5 kilometers or 3.1 miles to be exact. Of all of the wheelchair users that day I came in first place and got my picture in the newspaper. So after exactly four months and one day of training and starting with 0.2 miles, I completed 4.11 miles that day.

When you are told that you can’t, do it and prove that you can.