Less than a week ago we had a flash flood. It devastated us. Our home is a basement, where all the water pooled. We are very grateful for the help we received from kind and loving friends who came to our immediate rescue. The experience was rough, yet it became a tender example of how well children listen to their parents.
The Sunday previous, I had spent some personal time with my little son Simon. He’s a brilliant boy and I wanted to tell him a great story with strong visuals to help him remember–which ended up being about Jonah, the Whale and Nineveh. He listened with great intensity as I described the wickedness of the city people, and also why the big fish swallowed the Prophet. I knew he would remember the story, but not the concepts behind it.
I was wrong.
While our home had adults wading too and fro, bailing water, trying to save what furniture was left and personal belongings, little Simon was slowly walking through the muddy water, tears in his eyes, looking to the left, then to the right.
When his mother put her arms around him, she asked if he was ok.
“No mom. Look.” he pouted, pointing around him at the muddy water. “Heavenly Father is mad at us. We have been bad mom. Very, very bad. We need to be the good guys!”
Though he eventually learned that sometimes negative things happen for a good reason (I explained the big fish was there to take Jonah to Nineveh to do his initial job, and during our flood damage control, we received word that we had been accepted for a new place to live.), it helped me see that the personal time we spent with our little ones, instructing them and sharing is never in vain.
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