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Last summer my 3-year-old grandson, Marcus, was over for a long Sunday afternoon. It was hot. Marcus loves water. So his Yia Yia (that would be me) got out his $5.99 plastic purple wading pool. We filled it to the brim with water from the hose. Marcus happily splashed and poured and plopped in his pool—until the grass clippings from his feet covered the water's surface from his repeated trips in and out.

Then Marcus wanted to dump the "gukky" water and refill the pool. So we dumped the water on a "dryish" spot on the lawn, uncurled the hose again and refilled the pool. But Marcus lost interest in the pool and preferred the hose. He watered the flowers and the bushes and the grass. He watered the steps to the deck and the rocks and the flagstone patio. Then he got back into his pool, taking fresh grass clippings with him. Within minutes came the next plea, "Yia Yia, we need to dump out this gukky water—again!"

I'd been playing along up until his last request. But surprisingly, something stirred within me. In Colorado, we've been suffering drought conditions and the accompanying water restrictions. Water shortage is a real issue in our region. Marcus had already filled and dumped two purple plastic pools full of water on our now-not-so-thirsty grass.

Oh come on. He's just a kid. He's having fun. Why not?

But I felt strangely guilty. And responsible. As if I'd just spray-painted graffiti on an underpass or consumed an entire carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream all by myself. I felt horrifically, gluttonously wrong!

Out of my mouth came a response I'd never offered to my preschoolers. "Marcus, water is very special to our planet. Jesus gave us the world to take care of, and we only have so much water, so we can't waste it. Water is expensive. We need to use it carefully."

Marcus looked at me, took in my words and plunged back into his grass-clipping-topped pool without further objection. Made sense to him!

While my grandson went back to pouring and drinking and spitting, I thought about how I'd never taught my children such a thing. I never even really considered it as something I should teach them. I remembered hearing my in-laws brushing their teeth in their bathroom—water on, water off, water on, water off. I'd always thought that was so weird. My husband said his parents had learned to conserve water in the Depression, and the habit stuck. I thought that was old-fashioned. And cheap. And unnecessary.

That afternoon, as I sat beside Marcus, I recognized an integration of the planet and its people in my view of things. This is our Father's world. People were made in his image—and the planet on which we live belongs to him uniquely.

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