“PANTHERS IN THE HOUSE”

The four-year-old little girl had a startling“ly vivid imagination. She loved to live in a make-believe world of her own, and expected everyone else who happened to be around to follow along.

One day she and little brother were with us for the afternoon. It was raining outside, so they were captive in the house. Renie was in the kitchen preparing lunch and soon heard growling noises coming from the living room. Glancing in, she spied Bailey lying on top of the back of the couch, purring and growling occasionally. Her little body was unmoving, but her slitted eyes were constantly roving around the room. Britton was crawling around on the floor, growling and sniffing the air.

Mystified and amused, Renie watched for a minute and then asked what was happening. Slit-Eyes only flicked her eyes toward her and never said a word. Little Brother broke character long enough to inform his Nanna that they were panthers in the forest.

Satisfied with the answer, Renie returned to finishing lunch. When she had soup and sandwiches on their plates, she called for all hungry grandkids to come to the table to eat. No answer. Looking in again, she saw Britton looking up at Bailey and asking in his baby voice, “Baiwey, can we quit being panthers now? I’m hungwy!”

Renie watched patiently as the scenario unfolded. Never moving a muscle, Old Slit-Eyes finally deigned to let her gaze drop to the baby panther on the ground and menacingly whispered, “No. Panthers don’t eat soup. I’m up in a tree, waiting on a baby deer.”

At this point, Nanna had enough and stated in no uncertain terms that she was not serving baby deer on a platter to panthers, and if Bailey wanted to eat, she better come to the table right now.

In total amazement she watched as that child stealthily slipped from her watch post on the back of the couch. Smoothly as a stalking panther, Bailey slithered silently off the couch to the floor. She then slinked on all fours in a threatening crawl toward her Nanna. Eyes still slitted and strangely glittering.

That was when an unnerved Nanna called an abrupt halt to panthers, to forests, to baby deer prey, and to anything other than Bailey and Britton Bowman. “Bailey Ann Bowman, that’s enough! If you want any lunch, you better get up off that floor, open those eyes, and talk to me like the little girl you are!”

Eyes popped wide open, and Bailey immediately stood up and nodded. “Okay, Nanna, I just like being an animal sometimes. And today I was a panther who was hungry!”

Absolutely no doubt about it. Kids own terrific imaginations, and they love to play in the worlds that they can create. And that is a wonderful part of childhood, that every child should be encouraged to explore.

But, they need to be led to actually live life as their Creator made them. No panther or anything else.