When the Babysitter Becomes Elsa


With choppy movements, the tiny fingers slide the pen across torn paper.
It was one of four weekly babysitting jobs, 
and I recorded some wonder I witness from 
these delightfully hilarious kids, 
kids who unceasingly lead me deeper and deeper 
into the heart of God.

My night was flowing with anything and everything from the kids' imagination.

1.  I got turned into Elsa (blue dress and everything) and was instructed to freeze my sister's heart.
2.  One of the girls and I became pineapple juice.
3.  I had to go to the evil queen who would find the most fairest of all.
4.  "Olaf" got a haircut.
5.  I learned some new names: Trego, Venti, Cherioke, Beecama, Toe-morie-a, and Cray-do.
6.  I learned how to spell: Abcgtsb = Elsa!

My Elsa outfit :)

We had story-time.
I started telling a story, and  two of the little girls took turns telling their own.

Snip-bits from story-time:
He went off to the buttons?  To go see the Nutcracker?  Said la la la do do do? THAT'S CRAZY!
She got to be the king ... the heart was beating so fast ...
Do you have a story about a talking donkey?  Like, a giant donkey?
They grabbed the birds, polar bears, and penguins and hugged them ... then put them in a cage.
I wrote it all down for the troll, and he like snored!
There's an even badder one; the lion fell down!
There was pigeons.  The end.

The little hands that had written down our stories belong to a dramatic girl with 
a love of languages who intertwined truth into a story well beyond her five years.

The story according to a five year old.

She began, "When I was a little girl ... the bread was screaming ... it was a stormy and scary story and, even though she was hurt, she was still turned into batter.  She was hurt and looked at a church and saw Jesus ... even if you're hurt or alone ... have something better for you ... more than camp ... everywhere you go, everything you see ... there's more you don't see ... we love ... for something more better ..."

As she continued weaving her story with serious concern, those words I just recorded beamed a message we all need to hear more often:
Even if you're hurt or alone, your Father is doing something greater.
In everywhere we go and everything we see, there's more we would see if we let our Abba show us.
We have a love that can make this world a better place.


Through little feet that patter against the hard floor, through tiny hands that grasp a small doll, through the big, brown, beaming eyes,
God's fingerprints are evident.

Through words weaving an intricate story, God is whispering:

The pain, I redeem.  I am moving through you so that my kingdom advances.
My will is being accomplished as you surrender the broken fragments 
of the life you sometimes feel is too shattered to be useful anymore. 

Each tear you cry in the lonely darkness is known to me,
your comforter and helper.  I am here by you and will never leave;
are you going to come to my arms?


I have so much more to show you than what you see through self-consumed or task-oriented vision.  People are hurting.  The world is bleeding and fragmented.  You are my tangible
hands; come and know my heartbeat and gain my vision.

You get to show 
my 
love.


 I am here all around you making a grand story of my glory - in the fragile, in the messy, in the smashed goldfish and wet teething rings - I.  am.  here,
if only you would look. 


May we see with God's eyes and find His delight and purposes 
in all He plants in our path.
May we step out in what He has called us and
 do every task, no matter how mundane, with our whole hearts
so that wherever we are, we are fully there.

May we be brave to share our stories as the five year old shared her's. 
(In fact, she told me it was for a party, and that I can tell this to everyone.)

The world needs to see the hand of God.

(And next time you get a phone call, be ready; it just may be Princess Anna from Frozen calling to say there's a rainbow in her arm that you can slide on.)

 © 2014 Deborah Hope Shining

1 comments

I definitely don't want this to be a monologue. What are your thoughts? Questions? Ideas?