And a Child Shall Lead Them

I was serving in the nursery, and it was snack time. I loved watching the children’s personalities come out as they ate. Some kids dipped their crackers in their drinks and had to hurry to get it to their mouths before it fell apart. Others lined their fish up before they ate them or they made the fish swim to their mouths. Snack time with little kids always makes me smile.

My heart changed when I watched a sweet girl named Brooklyn Ragsdale share her snack with the boy next to her. She was taking teeny bites of her small cookie and enjoying each tiny bite. The boy next to her ate his cookie rather quickly. Brooklyn saw that he wanted more. She broke her cookie in half and gave it to him with a smile on her face. It was an automatic response for her. She even patted him…

My husband had an internship for the summer in Arizona. I had never lived someplace so hot, dry, and full of Saguaro Cacti. They were cool, but not something I found beautiful. I had always associated beauty with the green landscape. This new place lacked green and was very brown. I was expecting my second child and struggling with being away from family and friends. My husband, three-year-old daughter, and I were on a walk one evening. I was absently listening to my daughter's chatter as we walked along. My daughter abruptly stopped and stomped her foot. She then said, “Mom, look at the sunset.” When I didn’t look at the sunset, my daughter stomped her little foot again and demanded that I look at the sunset. This time, I listened and did what she asked. The sunset was absolutely amazing. I had never seen such a sunset with so…

Part of showing love for others is being interested in their hobbies, even if you know very little about them. My son, Thory, loved to make and fly paper airplanes. I would watch him make them and then fly them, but it wasn’t until he had a buddy come over that I learned how to truly show interest in his airplanes and in him. His friend, George, stayed with us for a few days and their favorite thing to do was fly airplanes. They made over two hundred planes. Then they delighted in taking them to the second floor of our home to launch them in the air, where they could watch them land on the first floor. They did this for hours and would comment about how each flew. They marveled at the loops and flips the airplanes made. If it made it down the hallway, they would shout…