Of balloons and tears and such <3

 

I have had this thought to share with you brewing for a few weeks and just being honest…I am not sure yet what God might say to us. I have no ending, concluding lesson or point as I start to share it.

It may be God will reveal it as we go, or it may just be a story I feel the need to share so with a prayer and another sip of coffee…here we go.

A couple of weeks ago, I went up to help Rachel with the kiddos. I am fuzzy on the details of why, but I know Rachel and Graham had something in the afternoon so I manned the fort with the three younger ones.

She texted me before heading home and asked if she had time to run to the grocery for a few things.

Caroline was sleeping and the boys were occupied so I gave her the thumbs up.

A short time later, the door from the garage opened and as mommy pushed white plastic bags of goods into the hallway, Graham entered with two balloons on sticks. A treat from the store that apparently the boys look forward to on such trips.

He had selected his favorite color, orange, for himself and brought a red one for Emmett. I said something about how that was thoughtful of him to remember his little brother, who for whatever reason promptly rejected the offering.

I am not sure how the transaction went down, but in the process Graham’s balloon got detached from the stick and as he tried to juggle these balloons and sticks and why Emmett turned his gift down…his balloon fell to the floor and in a burst of emotion he kicked it and it popped.

For the next few seconds, I had a front row seat to the heart struggle of a tired and dejected little fellow’s face as he contemplated his next move.

This is not my first rodeo with these two developing personalities and I had a strong feeling it was going to escalate into a retaliation that Mr. Happy-go-lucky Emmett had no idea was on the horizon.

So I did what grandma’s do, and I called Graham over to me to decompress.

I pulled him up into my arms and I attempted to put into words what I thought he might be feeling.

Small nods of his head indicated I was tapping into his heart.

I told him that I knew he was trying to do a good thing to bring an extra balloon home since Emmett didn’t go with them and that I noticed he had selected Emmett’s favorite color.

I spoke words of understanding at how it hurts when we do something nice and it isn’t appreciated or received and then how it felt so unfair that his own balloon was now lost. And how reacting in anger had turned a nice thing into a sad thing.

And as I held his little body close, tightened in a knot of self-righteous anger, I suddenly found myself crying…of all the crazy things.

I realized that I was speaking to myself as much as him and I needed the same kind of comfort I was extending.

Being older does afford us some measure of life wisdom, but inside we still have pockets of hurts and regrets that have never aged beyond our first grade selves.

Places where we learned that there are no formulas of behavior that will shield us from pain in dealing with others.

Times when we caused our own heartache by the way we reacted to someone else’s rejection of us.

So out of some depth of old sadness buried deep in me that I could not have identified to you right up to when the balloon burst, the tears flowed as I rocked this little guy that rocked our world over six years ago and stirred a love in me that sometimes overwhelms me.

And in that moment, I had a surreal picture of God holding me while I held Graham.

God, my Abba Father, holding me and rocking me while I comforted this little guy in my arms.

No guilt.

No condemnation.

Just love and grace and mercy.

And now we are at the end of my story today,

I have no thoughts or lesson or point to share except to say that we belong to and serve and worship a very personal and loving God.

He holds us accountable and rightfully so.

But His love overcomes our sins and our regrets, our sorrows and our pains. He pours into the places that are hurting deep within us if we will just climb into His arms and let Him tell us sort out our feelings and thoughts and sorrow.

I pray you know His embrace today where you need it the most.

You are loved by Him.

Have a blessed day <3