There is something wonderful about a child’s endurance. On a busy street, a young girl’s antics caught my eye. She knew what she wanted. She had a clear outcome in mind. A combination of freedom, enjoyment, and control were all within her grasp. She knew it with a certainty that is only found in a child. Anyone watching could see it. I was fairly certain that her mother knew the routine. At some level, she seemed happy to be part of the story.
Her immediate goal was to convince her mother that she should be treated to a treat from the ice-cream man. With his motorcycle and sidecar filled with options, even I was tempted to join in. I could see that it was a popular choice for kids. The queue was at least fifteen kids deep! As she circled her mother, she kept pointing at the street performer nearby with the jumbo-sized beads used like a hula-hoop. I could anticipate was coming next.
I was initially unsure what the mother’s response was. The initial attempts to ignore the girl’s tugs could be read as a no or a playful response challenging her to raise the stakes. The silence soon gave way to animated conversations, lots of gestures, and more tugs. It was soon obvious that the mother was enjoying the wonderful recipe for banter and fun.
As they stood in line, the one-way chatter soon gave way to a two-way conversation. Both were totally in the moment. Everything was fodder for the banter that followed – which choice each would make, what the street performer was going to do next, and the happenings around them. It was wonderful to see! I wondered if others who had picked up on the conversation realized how it had started. I smiled as I remembered words of a young man; “Every morning you’ll hear me at it again. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend.” (Psalm 5.3) The story was repeating itself in this young girl’s life.
