Preschool was a slightly harrowing experience for me. I was only four, and I was expected to...what—stand in lines, put toys away properly, sit on the correct piece of masking tape on the floor, and get along with 15 or 16 other four-year-olds. This could be challenging at times.
However, everyone would agree that snack time was the best. Everyone sat—mostly quietly—at our impossibly small tables and chairs. Everyone got along. NO ONE could possibly be upset during snack time.
Or so I thought.
Every day during snack time this one little girl with chin-length dark brown hair and chestnut brown eyes would throw a fit. One day I made the mistake of sitting at her table, and I found out why she acted this way.
She opened her lunch box and pulled out a small box of Sun-Maid raisins, and her whole countenance fell. She slammed the box onto the table and stood up. She leaned over the table, looking at me imploringly. "I hate raisins!" she declared.
I looked at her questioningly. My expression said: 'Um, okay?'
Her expression became more desperate, and she repeated emphatically, as if I had not understood her the first time, "I. Hate. RAISINS!"
At this point I was a little frightened.
She continued. "Every day I open my lunch box. And what is it? RAISINS! Every time! I hate them!"
I was probably considering moving to another table, but the kid next to me had the presence of mind to say something logical. He probably went on to study differential equations. "If you hate them so much, why don't you just ask for something else?" he suggested matter-of-factly.
However, this girl was not reasonable. Her eyes grew wide, as if neither of us had even listened to her. "I hate raisins! I hate them! Every time it's RAISINS!"
I decided to assist the future math genius in his endeavors. "Well, it does make sense. How is your mom going to know you don't like raisins if you don't tell her? Maybe if you let her know, she'll give you something else... like crackers or something." I held up my own crackers, but then lowered then again, thinking better of it. I didn't want her getting any ideas.
"But I hate raisins!" she protested nonsensically. She groaned loudly and opened her red and yellow raisin box. She ate them begrudgingly, her face becoming more twisted with frustration with each consumed raisin.
I was just remembering this, the little girl and her dehydrated grapes. (That's all raisins really are you know.) But anyway, I digress. I was thinking about how she just shouted the same thing over and over again, refusing to listen to reason. It didn't matter how many times she told us she hated raisins; neither of us could do anything about it. In reality, she was just preaching to the choir.
I think sometimes that's the way we are with God. We worry, we're unhappy, we get frustrated... and what do we do? We just keep worrying and being unhappy and frustrated! If that little girl had talked to her mom, I'm sure her mom would have given her something else to eat for snack. If we talk to God about what's going on, He's going to give us an answer. It might be "wait," but at least it'll be an answer.
Besides, God wants us to talk to Him. That's what prayer is for.
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." — Matthew 7:7
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