Day 923 -- A Heart So Big

My daughter Dharia has a gigantic heart.

Today, she accompanied my dad out to my grandparents' log cabin, where she caught a tiny frog. My grandma helped her to make a cozy habitat out of an old pickle jar and Dharia was over the moon.

That is, until we told her she had to set it free before she went to bed.

We explained to her how, if we didn't let the frog go, it would die.  We described how much happier the frog would be in a beautiful river with other frogs.  She nodded as tears streaked down her sweet face.  With heaving sobs, she prodded "her best friend" out of his pickle jar and onto the banks of the river.

The rest of the night, she was inconsolable.  She missed her frog and was devastated she would never see it again.  It was the type of sadness that was tangible -- the type that reached out and squeezed my own heart and made it ache.

I am so thankful for my daughter's huge heart, for her endearing sensitivity and empathy that she has been blessed with at such an early age.  A heart this big shatters with an equally great crash.  A heart this big brims with joy and spills it on all who are near. I am grateful just to be around her.

Thank God for a heart so big!

Lord, thank you for my little girl.  Thank you for holding her tonight in her grief.  I pray that you would use her huge heart for your glory.  In your name I pray, Amen.


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