a box, a tiny teacher, and our ‘yes’ man

There is a box that sits in our master bedroom, much to Josh’s chagrin.  It is a box of random things from my grandmother’s house.  Caroline enjoys digging through the box while I get ready in the morning.  The other morning she found two costume jewelry rings and she said,’Oh wow, look at these HUGE rings that MawMaw Toline gave me!’  (By huge, she was meaning that they were falling off her tiny fingers)  Then she proceeded to ask me, ‘Did MawMaw Toline give me all of this before she went to heaven or after?’  I explained that MawMaw Toline went to heaven and her children sorted through all of her things and they put some things in this box for us.  “Oh,” she said…’so what did MawMaw Toline take with her to heaven?’  Out of the mouths of babes!  I responded, ‘Well, she didn’t take anything.  You can’t take anything from this earth to heaven with you.’  To that Caroline concluded, ‘Oh, so we live outside in heaven?’ 

Yesterday, we went to  Christian Service Mission downtown to help with their annual Baskets of Kindness.  Where they partner with area churches to provide baskets of food for people in need.  Caroline insisted on bringing a very large Disney Princess Look and Find hardback book with her.  She said she wanted to give it to a little girl who needed it.  I tried to talk her out of it, saying that we would just be putting together baskets and we wouldn’t know if the people had a little girl at their house or not and we should just keep it at home.  Oh no, she said, I’m going to give it to a little girl.  Well when we got to CSM, the earlier volunteers had already put together all the baskets, so we were charged with delivering them.  We got four baskets and four addresses with directions.  We found our first house, Caroline was so excited, no one was home.  We drove and drove and drove and could not find the next two places, the addresses were off and so were the directions.  I confess, at this point I was so frustrated and ready to call it quits.  The final address on our list was to an apartment, but no apartment number.  So Josh and Caroline went into the leasing office and asked the lady if she knew the person on our list or anyone at the complex who may be in need.  She said that the cleaning lady would definitely appreciate it and gave us another apartment number of some people in need.  So Josh and Caroline walked up to the ‘cleaning’ ladies apartment…Caroline with that book in tow.  Guess what?  The lady had a 3 year old granddaughter living with her, what are the chances.  Caroline gave the little girl the book and the little girl was so excited.  Caroline said that she KNEW there would be a little girl who wanted th book.  Dear Lord, forgive me and please help me to have childlike faith.  Lesson learned.  Thank you tiny teacher.  Mark 10:14b, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

Clark is now our little ‘yes’ man.  Clark do you want some oatmeal?  Big head shake, big smile.  Clark are you ready for a nap?  Big head shake, big smile:)