Tall Tale Teaching
Raising children is a tall order; at least it is a much
loftier feat than I initially signed up for.
After numerous bumps along the trail, I am still searching high, not
low, for ways to train up my children in the way they should go. And the high road has proven to be the best
road since only the Highest of Highs and Holy of Holies really knows what is
best for His children, including me.
As my daughter and I were lying in bed for a treasured nap
together, she asked me to please tell her a story. Now this is not an entirely uncommon
request. As a former English teacher, I
am thoroughly in love with the plight of story-telling and have been known on
occasion to relay a ‘once upon a time’ to my sweet daughter. And our ‘once upon a times’ always include a
lovely princess named none other than Princess Katie (my daughter’s name),
which of course always ensues a wide-eyed beaming smile from the blue-eyed
beauty who yearns for me to tell her another part of ‘her’ story.
So she once again asks for a story, knowing I shall include
a little girl named Katie somewhere along the way. To be frank, I was past ready to close my
eyes and go to sleep and had to think long and hard before I finally grumbled
under my breath, and decided to try to devise a unique story. If I were going to have to postpone my
slumber, it could at least be worthwhile.
I believe God was smiling down upon me knowing full and well he would
make this one quite productive for both of his little girls involved.
So the story began:
Once upon a time in a
far away land, there lived a beautiful little princess named Katie. Now Katie lived in a very special far away
land, for it was called “Girl Land.”
See, in girl land, all the daddy’s and mommy’s would awake from their
nightly slumbers and then head happily off to work while the little girls gleefully
skipped their way to “Girl Land” for the day where they could laugh and play
and color and sing and just be girls together.
Well, on this
particular day, Princess Katie decided to spend her morning at the giant
carriage located in the middle of “Girl Land.”
And this giant carriage was known as the Crafty Creation Castle Carriage
because inside was every crafty girl’s dream:
paints and crayons and markers and glitter and glue and sequins and
little pom poms and fabric and scissors and the list goes on and on. And the colors, oh the colors! Pinks and purples and greens and blues and
reds and yellows!
So of course Katie was
having a wonderful time working so very hard on her butterfly picture until Ms.
Mean Girl came in and stood beside her.
Mean Girl then put her hands on her hips and in her sassy voice said,
“Oh, Katie. That is simply the ugliest
butterfly I’ve ever seen. You’ve worked
so hard and that is all you could come up.
You poor thing!” Then she stomped
out with great disgust.
Now Katie was a brave
girl and knew she should try her hardest not to worry about what other girls
think since she knew that what God thinks is the only thing that matters. But try as she may, tears began to trickle
down her cheeks and onto her butterfly.
But God also gives us friends who show His love at just the right time,
which is just what Katie’s good friend Heidi did.
Heidi had been working
a few seats down on a flower picture and saw everything that happened. So once she saw Katie wiping her tears away,
Heidi put her marker down, went over to Katie’s butterfly and picked it
up. She then stepped down from the
carriage, picture in hand, and began very excitedly going to each and every
girl in “Girl Land,” showing them Katie’s picture and asking them if this
wasn’t the most beautiful picture they’d ever seen. And it was a rather good butterfly picture so
of course all the girls agreed it was most lovely.
As Katie watched from
the carriage steps, her heart began to be lifted a bit higher and a bit higher
again with every little girl who praised her picture. And once Heidi returned to the carriage, the
two girls went inside together and sat back down to finish their creations with
rather happy smiles on their face. As
Katie finished and stood up to leave, she went over to Heidi. “Thanks a lot for what you did Heidi. It really made me feel better. Not just because of what those girls said,
but mostly because you showed me that God loves me enough to give me good
friends who can remind me of how much He loves me. So thanks for being just like our great big
God!”
As Katie stepped down
from the carriage with her picture in hand wrapped and ready to give to her
mommy, she noticed Mean Girl was under a tree over by the fence all alone. For a moment she thought she could just leave
Girl Land through the other exit so she wouldn’t have to see Mean Girl again,
but something prompted her to go ahead and go that way. As she came closer to Mean Girl, she could
tell she had been crying. And though
part of Katie was still very hurt by Mean Girl, she felt compassion for
her. Sitting down at her side, Katie
asked why she was crying.
“I’m crying because I
was really mean to you. I’m mean to lots
of little girls. And the reason I’m mean is because I’m
jealous. I could never draw something
that pretty and so I said those mean things because I was mad at you for being
able to do such a good job and because I wanted everyone to pay attention to
me. And now I’m crying because no one
will play with me because I was so mean.”
So Katie thought for a
minute. Then she had an idea. She picked up her butterfly picture and
placed it in Mean Girl’s lap.
“Here. I want you to have this. And every time you look at it, I want you to
remember that you don’t have to be mean to feel loved. God already loves you more than you could
ever ask for. So just look at it and
remember that a butterfly is beautiful because it had a beautiful maker. And you are beautiful too because you have a
beautiful maker.”
“Really? You would do all this for me after what I
did?”
“You bet.”
“But why?”
“Because I believe
that God loves you enough to give you good friends who can remind you of how
much He loves you, and I want to be that friend for you, just like Heidi was
for me.”
I believe God always gives me a story to tell in just the
right time and just the right place. I
believe this was God’s story to Katie, yes, but also to me, giving me a great
insight of one more method of how to raise children God’s way-using tall tales
to instill rather ‘tall’ virtues in my daughter.
What a grand idea-using stories to teach my children how to
handle tough situations before they even encounter such situations. Is it a tall order to raise children? Yes.
But I have the highest resource living inside me, so you better believe
I will keep searching the high road on this lofty journey.
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