Setting the tone

As I write this,
I am playing with my grandkids
   who are overflowing with imagination.
An empty plastic bin becomes
      a hospital bed for a newborn baby doll.
Two little chairs become a bus.

Their play is fluid.
The older of the two is well-skilled
  in adapting to the ever-changing ideas
  of her active almost-three-year-old brother.
When he wants the single chair
                        that she is using,
well, she drags up another chair or two
   and the hospital becomes a city bus.
She plays with the attitude of
      "What other way can I see this,
            how else can I play with this?"
What could be a conflict
                 morphs into resolution.
What happens that is not which
she originally intended
         emerges into another dimension,
         another opportunity to see differently.
"Pretend that this is...."
                         she says.
When one way doesn't work out,
        well, she works with what she has.
As a four year old, she doesn't understand
the concepts of conflict resolution and creavity,
     but she knows how to live it.

And as I sit here,
        surrounding by make-believe,
I realize it is not so much what I am facing today,
not so much the attitudes
        or even the actions of others
that sets the tone for the day
but my own heart condition.

There are some things I can change,
          some things I can't,
but I can always view things
                   with different eyes
                             and a gracious heart.
I can blame others,
            or I can influence the whole situation
           by practicing grace.
Not by pretending,
       but grasping the reality of God.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

                                   Psalm 51.10

God transforms every fiber of my being.
He changes everything about me.
How can I approach this situation
                       with a clean heart?
Not as much "what can I do different in this?"
              but how can I be different?
My heart
            focused on Him
      changes what I do.