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.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 162 -- "Showing Us the Way"

Image
One of my favorite things about the spring is the baccalaureate celebration that takes place the week before graduation.  I love the chance to see my seniors in their caps and gowns and to praise God for their arrival to the finish line.  For every year since I can remember, I've listened to Western's Select Choir perform the song "Showing Us the Way" by Michael V. Ficocelli.  When I was a senior, I even got to sing it at my own baccalaureate.  That year, and every year since I have taught at Western, I get choked up listening to the perfectly fitting lyrics of this song.  Tonight, on a perfect evening at the Cascades Falls, tears ran down my face as I watched the seniors I taught sing the words of this song to their classmates, parents, teachers, and friends.  I smiled and cried a little more as I realized that someday there's a good chance I'll be watching my own kids sing it at their baccalaureate. I had to share it with you.  This isn't Western's
Read more

We Dance...and We Sing...When We Play the Drum!

Let it be known that my son gets his money's worth out of his toys. Or, in this case, someone else's money's worth. Whatever. You know what I mean. The toys that he likes, he really, really likes. He uses them a lot for a long time. This particular toy is a drum that was given to him by our friends, The Tappans, at his FIRST birthday party. Needless to say, tonight he was REALLY enjoying his gift.
Read more

Day 80 -- Calvin and Hobbes

Image
When I was in junior high and high school, I used to read the anthologies of several comic strips, including Garfield, Fox Trot, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes.  I remember reading them by the light of my bedside lamp, trying to stifle my giggles so that my parents wouldn't come bust me for staying up too late reading (the horror!). Calvin and Hobbes, especially, resonated with my sense of humor.  I found the strip simultaneously witty, funny, thought-provoking and perceptive.  I collected all of the anthologies, but somewhere between then and now, I either lost them or gave them away.  I told my husband about my tendency to read them from cover to cover, and how I was sad that I no longer had them.  Not too surprisingly, for Christmas, I received The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book from Santa. I have been slowly working my way through the book, and tonight I was reminded of Calvin's finicky eating habits and of his gift for creating macabre snowman art.  I w
Read more