in the fury of the moment

balloon animals and crocodile tears

This past weekend, my mom and I took my nieces to a party at one of the local Christian bookstores. There were prizes, and snacks, and grown women dressed up as large life-sized vegetables, and CLOWNS. Really, I think they were just someone's grandparents dressed up in goofy clown-like clothes ... but for all the kids knew, they were the real deal. And they were making balloon animals. My niece decided she wanted a hummingbird. So she got a hummingbird. Meanwhile my younger niece had chosen an elephant. So they got their creatures, and we took off with our goodies (most of which were being carried by my mom and I as my nieces skipped to the car).

It was a nice day out, so we decided to drive to the playground. The girls were sitting in the backseat, happily playing with their new pets ... and all of a sudden, POP. My mom jumped, which was a little unnerving because she was the one driving. I turned around and saw the priceless look on my niece's face as she realized that the noise had come from one of the wings on her hummingbird. For a minute I really had to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing. But then I saw her eyes, and laughing was the furthest thing from my mind. Her little 6-year-old blue eyes were welling up with tears, and then came the wailing. She was sobbing. I mean the kind of sobbing where you can't even get out full words because you're gasping for air. And the tears that were rolling down her cheeks ... I've never seen tears that big, or so frequent. They were seriously pouring down her face, leaving a big wet spot on her little tie-dyed tanktop. I did my best to comfort her from my seat in the front, and eventually her wails turned to little whimpers.

In the meantime, my niece Bekah was just sitting there staring at Sarah and holding onto her purple elephant friend. All of a sudden her face lit up with a smile. I was just about to scold her for teasing her sister (something they do often to each other), and then I saw her hold out her elephant towards the teary-eyed Sarah. She gave her the elephant! She told her that she "didn't need to be sad anymore, because she had a new animal."

Oh my goodness. I almost started crying myself as I learned yet another lesson from these little people who are less than a quarter of my age. I know that the elephant was important to my niece, she had been hugging it ever since we left the store. But she saw her sister's pain, and she wanted to ease it. She knew she was holding onto something that could help. And even though it might have saddened her to do so, she gave up what she had so that her sister could be happy again.

Kinda reminds me of a different story. Only it's not about a purple balloon elephant -- it's about a thing called salvation. Just like my niece had been playing pretty rough with her hummingbird, we play pretty rough with the things in our life. Then we get surprised when something breaks and we can't fix it. But I saw God in the hands of little 4-year-old Bekah that day, as she gave up something that she valued and loved, so that her sister could be happy. The offer of the purple balloon elephant is there for each of us. We can't fix the hole in the wing of our own balloon, but God is holding out a new balloon to each of us. And we don't need to be sad anymore, because we have something new.

posted by Krista @ 3:18 PM