Little Triumphs May Prepare Us For Bigger Challenges

Isn’t God’s timing interesting?

One of my 6-year-old twin boys never understood the concept of blowing OUT of his nose.  It’s kind of an abstract concept if you really think about it. For years, I tried and tried to help him to understand. I explained, I demonstrated, I contrasted blowing out with blowing in, I even lit a candle to make a little game of trying to blow it out with his nose! Face it, desperation is the mother of pure craziness. Nothing ever worked, so I gave up and instead, breathed silent prayers that nothing would ever get shoved up into places that only tissue (or maybe fingers) should go.

Recently, my boys and I were in the backyard, splashing around in our pool, trying to make it through another 100+ degree day in Texas, when Andrew suddenly stood up, nose obviously full of chlorinated water, eyes watering (or was that just the pool water?).  This was a tired old rerun, and I knew this scene well. My line was, “blow out”, and invariably he would sniff in! (Youch) He would cry and I would get annoyed.

But by the way he stood, I could tell something was very different this time. Instead of the typical scene, something interesting unfolded. Nothing was said, but I saw a thought fixed on his face. I could have touched the proverbial light bulb that flashed on. Very gingerly, ever so softly, like the breathing of a sleeping baby, he pushed a little water OUT of his nose! He tried again and blew a little harder this time. We froze, he looked at me, our eyes locked, and then we splashed, laughed and celebrated!  Face it, 6 is kind of old to learn to blow out of your nose! But that is what made our celebration so momentous.

Fast forward a week. As I was cleaning up Saturday morning dishes, a very wide eyed boy came creeping into the kitchen pointing to his nose. Fear was pasted on his face. I quizzed, questioned, enticed until he finally whispered that there was something in his nose.

“What?”

“A bead.”

“A what?”

Yup, a bead was crammed up his nose!

I got eye to eye with him.  I plugged one nostril and reminded him of the pool.  Visions of emergency rooms flitted through my mind. after all, what DO you do if one of these things doesn’t come out? I snapped off the images of “plan B”, and focused on “plan A”….get him to blow it out.

He got really still. I prayed. He breathed. I prayed again. WHAMMMMM!  Out shot a ribbed red plastic bead from last weeks Sunday School project! Ribbed bead? That had to have hurt!

You know, isn’t that how it is with us and God?  We casually learn something. We have this inexplicable light bulb moment when suddenly we “get it”, like blowing water out our nose, never suspecting that perhaps He was really equipping us to handle that “bead up the nose” moment.  It’s funny how we sometimes think God is concerned only about the big tragedies, and yet perhaps He is also interested in those small little boogie covered bead moments.

Written by Christy Olivera.