Last Friday night, Brock had his annual lock-in with another local church. The girls and I joined them for some mingling time and some pizza, but then headed home to enjoy the comforts of our cozy beds. The next morning, the girls and I got ready and headed to the mall for some lunch and a carousel ride, while Brock got some much needed rest. I was already a little frazzled, being that I was alone with the girls on a busy Saturday at the mall, but our lunch was accident free, so we headed for the carousel.
A token to ride the carousel cost $2—So I reached into my purse only to pull out a twenty, three ones and some change. I calmly reassured the girls that it would be just a few more minutes before we could ride and began to brainstorm on what I could do. Then came my moment of genius—I’ll go ahead a buy one token, run into a store, buy something and get some change. So I straighten out my dollar, inserted it in to the machine and out pops a token! Now logically, I know that apparently someone had entered a dollar and decided not to ride, but as a believer, my first thought was that this was a small “blessing” from above. I quickly snatched up the token, put two more dollars in and mounted the girls on their animal of choice—Ella a tiger and Sophie a white horse.
As we began to spin round and around, I couldn't help but see the happiness and security in the girls’ eyes—hear the complete and utter joy in their laughter and then my mind began to spin round and around.
Then stillness and one single thought . . . . “Can God’s blessings be attributed to this? Does He really care that my children get to ride the carousel ?!”
There are children whose parents take their anger out on them.
There are children who wake every morning wondering if today will be the day their home is bombed.
There are children who won’t eat today.
There are children who are living with HIV.
There are children who will die today from disease that could be prevented with adequate health care.
Then I began to recite these words:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you . . . .
Is this what it means to be blessed?
And if so, have we so corrupted the word that we do not know what it truly and humbly means to be blessed?
Which lead me to this question—Do we even care to know the difference?
Would we be willing to know the difference?
Just a token of thought . . . . .
