My, oh my, how Christ loves children! I’d been praying about our next puppet trip
to the hospital, and the idea recurred to make a cardboard theater. I found a scrap piece of cardboard, sprayed it with some old white paint, and tried
cutting out a puppet window and gluing down some leftover red ribbon as trim. A gray remnant of fabric and a piece of doweling lying waste in the garage provided
for the theater's curtain. Days
passed, I continued praying, and one Saturday at dinner, some friends showed me photos of some very inventive spoon puppets. Now
I’m all keen on getting home to see if I still have that old wooden spoon I never
use! My new puppet partner made us some
medical puppets with popsicle-stick handles, plus we still had the bigger
puppets I sewed last year, and for music we now had an extra flute that another friend gave
me. Also
we have a Little Red Riding Hood doll trio on loan from a friend from
church. So this trip to the hospital was
looking a bit different than previous.
Many people we loved meeting in the hospital hallways, and some for only short periods in the
playroom, yet there was one little girl who stayed with us the whole time. It’s
with her that I saw the Lord illustrating His love in detail. Only He could know the pleasures of this little girl's heart and prepare us accordingly.
At first, she sat quiet and watched puppets appear one by one. She grinned when we sang and eventually giggled
and asked to strum the ukulele and hold our extra flute. Then this tiny voice piped up to announce she
wanted to be puppeteer, so we made room for her IV to roll alongside her behind the
theater, and lo and behold, she donned a smile signaling new command of the
playroom! Puppets found new voice and
new dance, and as she designed her own paper bag puppet, I marveled at the
extent to which the Lord provided for this little girl. She remembered most all of our
puppets’ names and took special fancy to our new spoons Paul and Cindy. And from
our collection of medical puppets, she had a fondness for the puppet with his own IV, which perfectly matched her own. In Mark 10:14, Jesus says, “Let the little
children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.” And so I thank the Lord for His capacities to see far and wide and to love to great extents. This day we invited our guests to each draw a picture on our
cardboard theater, and they sent us home with a souvenir we treasure. Thank you, Lord, for answering our prayer to
prepare the way.
