“You were born to dance to the beat of your own heart; to roam without cages; with the innocence of a child, and the free spirit of untamed horses; I hope you laugh without stopping, live with abandon, and love like that’s all there is; stay wild, my wild, wild child.”

Kenny Chesney

Photos by Naomi Campbell:

I think it’s fairly obvious that I love my grandchildren. Rebekah and I have been blessed with four outrageously beautiful examples, ranging in age from 12 to three. They are all amazing in their own way, but today I can’t help but talk about the youngest, Geoffrey, who is a Force of Nature and so completely unstoppable that I don’t know how his parents manage to keep up with him.

Well of course they don’t. Because he is both spoiled beyond reason (not only by his parents but also his brother and sister), and because he is too smart, too cute, too energetic, too imaginative, too full of this verve/energy/passion cocktail; too… well… Geoffrey.

So our daughter Naomi laughs a lot – she has to, she tries to reel him in – but it’s a lot like getting a butterfly to go in a straight line, she works at teaching him to dial it back a notch, and then of course she runs up the white flag – she runs it up a lot.

Just looking at this child will break your heart, the beauty of him is so uncontainable. I have written before about how our human experiences hold minuscule samples – evidences – of what is real about joy, and love, and creativity, and light, and imagination, and beauty – about how as mortals we do not have the capacity to experience more than the smallest echos of the light and joy that is in Heaven.

Well that’s Geoffrey! Geoffrey is more light and joy than we can handle! In a sense, Geoffrey is a little too much; he shines too brightly, he plays with more exuberance; he is – dare I say – dangerously beautiful.

I have this theory that God equips us – or is willing to – to deal with what we are entrusted with. Not that “God never gives us more than we can handle” but that, with God’s help – in partnership with God – “All things are possible.”

So Geoffrey is more than most people could imagine. Of course our daughter Naomi and her husband Craig are not “most people.” But it is more than that; it goes back to that phrase I shared from Rebekah the other day. “Faith does not make things easy, faith makes things possible.”

You need God on this one, Naomi and Craig! Of course we all need God all of the time and for all sorts of things. But this one… This One… this one is special. This one is something else. This one you are going to have to place in God’s hands – along with yourselves.

This one shines.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

Matthew 19:26