One time a little girl was late coming home from school. When she got home, her Dad met her at the door and said “Why were you late? I was worried about you!” “My friend Trevor broke his bicycle on his way home” she said, “so I stayed with him to help.” “But you don’t know how to fix bicycles” her father said – which was true, she didn’t know how to fix bicycles. “I know” said the little girl “I stayed behind to help him cry.”
Sometimes in life, things happen that we can’t do anything about. An accident happens, or something breaks down, or we get sick just when we wanted to be well, or we lose something, or we try hard, but things don’t go the way we want. At times like that, the people who love us can’t always fix what is wrong. But they can be with us and help us cry so that we know we are loved even when things aren’t going so well.
One of the children in our church school has been having a time lately that hasn’t been going so well. His name is Gabriel and he’s three years old and not so long ago, he fell and broke his arm, and after that he had to have five operations to fix it!!! He has been living in the hospital instead of at home and feeling very sick and not very happy. He has something that’s broken, and he could use someone to help him cry – that’s where all of you come in.
One of the things that a church community does for people is to help them cry, to help people feel that even when things are going not so good, that there are people who love you and are thinking about you and want things to go better. One way we can do this is by telling Gabriel that we are sorry he’s feeling badly, and we hope he’s feeling better soon.
Yesterday, Gabriel got to go home, and now his job will be to get better. It will take him a long time to feel ALL better. But you can help him along the way by wishing him the best. And we can all do that by making him a GIANT card that everyone signs and draws on to cheer him up.
I hope that this way of helping Gabriel cry when things are hard will make them a little easier. And if your turn comes, and you need us to help you, too – you make sure and tell someone that you could use a little help crying. We’ll be right there. Because that’s what people promise each other in church – to be right there if you need some help. Gabriel’s card will say at least two things; “Welcome Home” and “Get Well Soon!” and the rest is up to you! I know it will be beautiful!