Strings

Have you heard of this? Tying strings of fellowship?

 

Last night Shelly and I were talking before bedtime and she started telling me about how she had missed me the night before. She had gone to Grandma Sue's for a sleepover with her cousins, they had a girls' night together and had lots of fun. But she missed us. She's always done this, found some sadness in the fun because she misses someone who wasn't able to be there with her. I love that she wants to be with us and misses us, but I don't want it overshadowing her fun, and so we talked about it.

Shelly, did you know that there's an invisible string that goes from your heart to my heart? I told her that when she goes away, the string starts to strech, but its strong. When she goes away for awhile, or a far distance, that string streches, but its strong, and we're still connected. She really liked this analogy, and we started pulling on the strings on the sweatshirt I was wearing. I leaned back, she held on and we watched those strings streeeecccchhhhh, but she held on tight.

We talked about how the string streches, but that's ok, because we always come back together again. And then I asked her, don't you want those strings between you and Grandma to get stronger? And what about your cousins? When you spend time together, you make those strings stronger... She was smiling thinking about all the strings between her and everyone she loves, she started listing people and I can imagine she was thinking about all that string between her and everyone else. Can't you picture the big web of strings between each of us, from me to my husband and kids, from them to each other and to me, from each of us to all of those in our lives that we love?

At some point, Archer came into the room and sat with us while we described all of those strings, and the analogy started to shift a little. We talked about things getting tangled up and messy between each other. What do you do when things get tangled? Knotted? Its an analogy that works so well. One that I need to remember more often. Take the time to tie new strings between myself and those I love. Spend time together doing fun things, talking, building that relationship. Take the time to untangle them when things get complicated. And protect them, don't ever, ever let anything come to cut the strings that connect us to each other.