A friend of mine shared a little “parable in real life” that God sent her several years ago.

When her son was quite small, he had a small stuffed gorilla that he wagged around with him everywhere — and I do mean EVERYWHERE — he went. She could sometimes sneak it away for a quick laundering during nap time, but Heaven help her if her son awoke before his friend “Rilla” was out of the dryer! As such ‘”loveys” will do, Rilla’s seams gradually began to weaken and his stuffing began to leak.

As she tells it, “Poor old Rilla was in desperate need of some corrective surgery, not to mention a stuffing transplant. One day, John waddled up to me and held up his battered, beloved Rilla and said, ‘Mommy, Rilla’s broked.’ I explained that I would be happy to fix Rilla up — a little new stuffing, some seam reinforcement, and he would be ‘all better’ again. John held Rilla out toward me, and said ‘Fizzit, Mommy!’ But, when I reached down to take the little gorilla in my hands, I found that it had a two-year-old firmly attached to it. As all parents know, a tug-of-war with a two-year-old is frequently a losing proposition, and is ALWAYS accompanied by loud cries and copious tears. Finally, in exasperation, I said, ‘I can’t fix it until you let go of it!!!’ And just at that moment, the Spirit of God tapped me on the shoulder, as it were — and I realized that God was waiting for me to let go of several things, too.”

Author unknown. If anyone has a proprietary interest in this story please authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as the circumstances dictate.

Thanks to WITandWISDOM(tm) – June 9, 2000 subscribe-wit-wisdom@xc.org