Bigger Picture Moment: Bigness

To me, she is little.  She waits at the door, leaning to get a glimpse of  the Easter-egged yard past the other kids' shoulders.  Little hands grip a wicker basket, little feet shuffle, a little nervous smile flits. 

Then, with a burst, the children pour through the shadows and dissolve into the sunlight.  Mia is flustered from all the opportunity nestled in the grass.  She switches direction twice before finally bearing down upon a pastel egg.  Once in her hands, she drops it into her basket and takes off for more.  The other kids are ants swarming an outdoor picnic.  Arms and legs flailing, eyeball-antennas focused on the prize. 

Mia drops to her knees for a royal blue plastic egg.  She lifts it to the sky, smiling.  Mama!  It's a TINY one!  And it is; the egg would only hold a teaspoon of sugar if it came to such a measurement.  She is beside herself with pleasure.  The unusual.  The miniature.  It is hers.  She nestles it within her basket's paper grass and scurries away, hunched over in pursuit. 

Then, from the porch: Big kids, be sure to leave the easy eggs for the little kids to find, okay?

Mia pauses.  She glances into her two-egged basket.  She reaches inside while the rest of the smiling ants continue to swarm, and she picks up her tiny egg -- the easy egg.  Her legs turn and she skips back to the clump of grass recently freed of its treasure.  I hear her mutter, alright, little egg...

My heart twists; she thinks she is big.  I heard the reminder about big kids and little kids differently, and this is my everyday knowledge: Mia is my baby.  She is my tiny egg.  A white sun is perched directly above her dark-coppery head and she thinks she is big.  Cousins twelve inches taller than her are jumping for eggs in tree branches and she thinks she is big.   Her basket is nearly empty while the other gatherers have almost filled theirs and she thinks she is big.

She was willing to give up her tiny, blue egg.  The one that caused her eyes to widen and her heart to show behind those glittering irises.  She would have been content if the hunt had ended then, with the teaspoon-sized egg nearly alone in her basket. 

But she separates the grassy border at her feet, wedges the egg back into new-green blades, goes off in the direction of kindness.

She is big, I think.  She is.




We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join us at Alita's place today! Grab the button, link up, and read a few others to encourage them as they walk this journey of intentional living.