Saturday, January 21, 2012

Leprechaun

When I was about 3 ½ years old, we lived in Fort Devens, Massachusetts. One night I had a nightmare during which I woke up terrified that there were bears in our house. My mother came into my bedroom and held me, telling me I was just having a bad dream and that there were not bears in our house. I did not believe it – there WERE bears in the house. And, they weren’t just any bears - they looked just like Dancing Bear on Captain Kangaroo. As I continued to cry, mom took me around the entire house, opening closet doors and even taking me down to the basement to prove there were no bears. She then tucked me back into bed, gave me a kiss and I eventually went back to sleep.

I was reminded of this story when visiting my daughter and her family in Georgia this past week. On the first night I was there, my 4-year old granddaughter told me she was afraid of leprechauns. I had to stop a smile from appearing on my face as she was telling me that leprechauns are little, they carry a hammer that they hit you with, and they take your gold. She even made a noise and told me that was the sound she heard from the leprechaun in her preschool classroom. She was dead serious. I reminded her that leprechauns were pretend, and we played a little game of “Is it real or is it pretend?”. This game consisted of me saying something and she would say whether it was real or pretend. Each time I said leprechaun she correctly said pretend . . . but I could tell she wasn’t quite sold.

The last night I was there, I was tucking her into bed when she brought up leprechauns. I asked her why she was scared. She told me her teacher had read a story about leprechauns and that she had a scary dream about them that night. I asked her if leprechauns were real or pretend. Again, she said pretend but was obviously still afraid of them. I shared with her that when I am scared about something, I ask Jesus to help me – to keep me safe – to make it go away. I asked her if that sounded like a good idea and she said yes. So, Grandma prayed with her little granddaughter.

What is the “leprechaun” in your life? What is it that you fear – what keeps you awake or scares you during the night: Finances? Relationships? Your Job?

Do you let God get you through these fears? Scripture tells us that worrying is not good.

Proverbs 12:25
Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.

God wants us to need Him, to rely on Him to get us through our fears and worries. He wants to help us deal with the "leprechauns" in our life.

Philippians 4:6-7
Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Will you let Him?

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