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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

When Life Leaves You Alone...

The little kids were singing in church, and one earnest 4-year-old found himself squeezed out of the mix as the song said, "Shake another hand, shake a hand next to you." Everyone seemed to have hands to shake but him, and he let the congregation know. So his grandmother, sitting on the front row, scooped him up and dropped him at the end of a line of kids and he righteously shook another hand, the hand of the kid next to him.

Next verse: rub another back, rub a back next to you. Wouldn't you know it, all the kids seem to be rubbing to their right, and our little guy is on the left end. (Who knows why the hand-shaking could go both directions but not back-rubbing.) He rubs another back, the back of the kid next to him, but as the little voices sang out, he let the guitar playing leader lady know he didn't have anyone to rub his back. Without missing a chord, she quietly said, "Rub your own" and kept on singing. And so he did.

He rubbed another back, a back next to him, and he rubbed his own back at the same time, serious and satisfied. God gave him two hands, and sometimes life is like that.

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