Friends, you’ll get such a kick out of what happened here this morning!
My 10 year old, Ryder, and his neighborhood friends have loved spending time after school in the autumn sunshine, kicking and catching a football in the street. He can literally spend hours doing this (it boggles my mind!) – but they were using a busted-up football, with the stuffing coming out. So yesterday, I drove him to a sporting goods store to pick out a new football and a kickstand.
He was thrilled and played football all evening – until one of his punts veered right and catapulted that football right into an evergreen tree in our front yard. We looked and looked (and even tried to shake the tree with a rake), but we couldn’t see the football. As night fell, I told him we’d try again today.
This morning, it was all he could think about. While I made breakfast, he ran outside to look for it. No luck. He begged me to go out in my pajamas, climb a ladder with a rake, and do my best to find it. Ha! Can you imagine what a spectacle that would have been for the neighborhood?? I told him we’d try to come up with some ideas after school, which he was NOT happy about.
There was pouting. And moping. And as he put his backpack on, he grunted, “I’m never gonna find it in my whole life!”
“If you think that way, you’re probably right,” I told him. “Remember, your thoughts are powerful. Let’s trust something will work out – even if we don’t know how.”
He rolled his eyes (he’s heard this speech eight million times), gave me a half-hug and headed out the door. Not 20 seconds later, he burst right back through it, shouting with joy.
“I got it! I got it! A bird just flew into the tree and knocked it right out!”
Ha!! As he hurriedly and happily stuffed it into his backpack for recess, I pointed out what had just happened. That bird didn’t come hours later or while Ryder was inside talking to me, but at the precise moment he was walking by that tree, seconds after shifting our outlook (even if he did do it begrudgingly). It was like a little God wink – an awesome and perfectly-timed reminder to my boy that magic can happen when we trust. Sometimes, it spurs our own inspired action. And sometimes, it triggers inspired action by forces unseen and the Universe sends birds and balls and joy flying.
Another touchdown for the power of positive thought. 🙂
