Kids Page: Special Days

TROWEL & SWORD

Resources - Children's Pages

April 2002

Kid's page

Special Days

Anne Groenenboom

“I’m so tired!” Mum remarked to Chris, as she sank into her armchair and put her feet up on the footstool. “I’m so busy with the Autumn Festival, I’m exhausted already! I’ll be glad when this month is all over.”

Chris looked up as Mum spoke, wondering if she’d mention his birthday, which was in a couple of weeks time, but she didn’t say a thing. It was Carla’s birthday this month, too, and he’d already tried several times to remind Mum, but nothing seemed to work.

Chris knew that his mother was feeling stressed because she was organising the church float for the local Autumn Festival, on the third Saturday in April. It was the first time the church had been involved in the festival and nobody was really sure what to do for the float. Mum had been trying hard to think of a theme that would be a good witness to everyone watching the parade and finally she chose, “GOD GIVES US THE SEASONS AND HE GIVES US ETERNAL LIFE.”

“Then, if people ask us, we can tell them what the Bible says,” she explained. “We can also have a few placards with Bible verses such as John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 and Romans 6:23 to help get our message across.”

Mum was organising people to paint lots of giant autumn leaves, ready to decorate Mr Rossini’s truck and others to paint a banner with the theme on it, to go on the front. All the kids and the Sunday School teachers would be dressed up as flowers and they would sit on the back of the truck. The big boys would hold the placards and help look after the little kids, because they were too old to be flowers. Mum was busy arranging for people to make the flower outfits and the placards. The phone kept ringing all the time with questions and suggestions that Mum had to deal with. No wonder she was so tired, Chris thought. He crept out of the room and went looking for Amy. Maybe she’d have some good ideas about how to remind Mum about his and Carla’s birthdays.

“I know what we can do,” Amy said. “Why don’t we use some Stick-it notes on the calendar? Mum often does that when she needs to remind herself about something.”

Chris nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a great idea, Amy! Mum will be sure to notice them.”

In no time at all, the calendar had two notes on it, proclaiming both the birthdays in bright red letters and Chris felt certain that Mum would remember now. However, he started worrying again when his mother still didn’t say anything and the stickers vanished from the calendar. Mum always said she was getting too old to bother about her own birthday. Surely she didn’t think he was too old! Twelve wasn’t “too old” was it? And what about Carla? She was only turning six. Why should Carla miss out? Poor little kid... it just wasn’t fair!

Chris gloomed around the house, feeling left out and miserable. The only person who seemed to care about his birthday was Amy and she was just as puzzled as Chris was.

Finally, Amy asked Mum what was going to happen for Carla’s birthday, which was coming up at the end of the week, a few days before Chris’ birthday.

“Carla is invited to Sarah Mills’ sleepover party on Saturday, so we’ll just have a cake for her on Sunday. She’ll be too tired for anything else after being awake half the night,” Mum replied. Amy nodded, waiting for Mum to mention Chris’s birthday, but her mother went bustling off to do the washing. Amy was standing near the breakfast bar, looking worried, when Grandma came in and asked what was wrong. Amy told her how miserable Chris was feeling, especially since they put the reminder notes on the calendar and Mum still hadn’t said anything.

“I can explain that!” Grandma told her. “Joel climbed up and pulled all the notes down. By the time he’d finished with them, they were too messy to go back on the calendar, so I threw them out.”

Amy asked, “But are we going to do anything about Chris’ birthday?”

“Of course we are!” Grandma replied. “We’re going to have a barbecue and he can invite a couple of friends. I’ll make a birthday cake and organise the food, seeing that your mother is so busy. She probably forgot to tell Chris what we’ve planned, but everything’s going OK.”

Amy hurried off to tell Chris the good news. When he heard what was being planned, he felt much happier because he really had thought that Mum didn’t care about his birthday and he was sure that meant that she didn’t care about him either.

That evening, as they had dinner, Chris noticed that his mother seemed more relaxed than she had for the past few weeks and, for the first time in weeks, the phone hadn’t rung once during the meal.

“I’m so glad everything is organised now for the festival,” Mum said. “I was so worried that I’d have to do most of the work myself, but everyone is doing a great job and things seem to be working out well.”
“That’s good!” Dad commented. “Now we’ll be able to get on with our family life while everyone else races around finishing the float. I’ve been feeling very neglected lately!”

“Chris and Carla are the ones who’ve probably been feeling neglected, because I just haven’t had much time to think about their birthdays!” Mum replied. “I even forgot to tell Chris what we were planning and I’m sure he thought that nobody cared about him!”

Chris blushed and nodded. “I thought nobody cared about my birthday, especially when Amy and I put big red stickers on the calendar to remind you and they were gone the next day!”

“Grandma told me about that, Chris. I’m sorry that you felt miserable,” Mum told him.

“And I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, but doing something I’ve never done before was a real challenge and I wanted to make sure I did the best job I could. It’s so important to tell all those people living in our community who don’t know about Jesus.” Mum stated. “Which reminds me, I think we’ll make another banner with the chorus of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” on it. That’s such an old hymn that lots of the oldies will remember it and maybe it will start them thinking. I’m sure we could find somewhere to put it.”

“Couldn’t we make a short banner to fit across the back window? We could print the words in two lines instead of four and then it would be easily seen, as long as nobody stands up in front of it,” Chris suggested.
“That’s a great idea, Chris... and everyone in the truck will be sitting, anyway, because it’ll be too dangerous to stand up,” Mum commented. “Those little sides on the truck aren’t all that high and I don’t want anyone toppling overboard. Now, how would you like to help paint the banner for me?”

Chris nodded eagerly and got busy as soon as Mum had outlined the letters for him.

After that, the days went by very quickly until it was Chris’s birthday. The weather was fine and Chris had a great time with his friends. The food was good and Grandma’s cake was absolutely delicious. Chris, remembering how miserable he had been the previous week, gave Mum and Grandma each a big hug and told them how much he had enjoyed his birthday.

The next few days were busy with last-minute checks on things for the float. Mum watched the weather reports anxiously, but Dad told her not to worry because they had been praying for fine weather for weeks. Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and everyone was at the church early, to get the float ready. When everything was in place, it looked really good and the banners and placards were very easy to read. Before the truck left to join the parade, everyone prayed together that God would give them all lots of opportunities to tell people about Jesus.

After the parade, Mr Rossini parked his truck near the stalls, so that everyone could still see the banners and placards. The grownups from the church were there to answer any questions and hand out tracts and New Testaments. Chris was really thrilled that he knew what to say, whenever he was asked to explain the meaning of his placard, “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

Lots of people came to ask questions and at the end of the day, everyone gave thanks to the Lord that they had so many opportunities to tell people about the gospel.

SOMETHING TO DO.

Together with your family, read through the verses that were printed on the placards and discuss what they mean. John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Romans 6:23.
Make posters of these verses and pin them up around the house, to help you memorise them.
Make sure you know what the verses mean, so you’ll be ready to explain what you believe, when people ask you.
Ask the Lord to give you lots of opportunities to tell your friends about Jesus.

All reports of problems and comments concerning this site: webmaster@trowelandsword.org.au

Privacy