Priceless Packing Peanut

What is the significance of a single packing peanut?

One packing peanut won't do anyone any good. About the only thing it can do is land you in the ER because it was stuck up a four-year-old's nose. (Sorry, but that isn't where this story is going.)

The countdown for the Ball family to move has begun. It's ticking down and my wife has enlisted my girls into forced labor by making them pack their playroom.

For some reason my four-year-old daughter came asking for a box to place this packing peanut in.

My daughter stored this peanut for over six months. Feelings of claustrophobia overcame me as I realized that her future included her own episode of Hoarders.

When I asked her why she wanted to keep it she said, "Because Lydia and Jenna gave it to us." (Turns out she isn't only sentimentally attached to the couch.)

Actually, they didn't give her a packing peanut. Their family sent us the most incredible gingerbread house you could ever imagine for Christmas this year. So incredible in fact that it was sent enclosed in a bazillion little Styrofoam peanuts.  They ate the gingerbread, not the Styrofoam. They have a Styrofoam peanut allergy.  (See UnCrappy Christian Christmas Gift for a photo of this work of art.)

Chloe remembers who gave it to her and so she saved it. Seriously...all this time and she knew exactly where she had stashed it. She loves Lydia and Jenna, who are the teenage daughters of some of our closest friends, my pastor and his wife.

She loves them so much that trash became a treasure to her.

Those two girls have no idea how much they are loved. And it's really simple to see why my daughters feel this way about them.

These girls give them attention. They spend time with them.

Even though they are years older, they play with them. They do each others' nails, hair, and other girly things that I don't understand. They have a pool and invite them over to swim.

Giggles are always heard when they are in each others company.

They are so good to my daughters that sometimes I catch my girls pretending to be them.

The last time we took the girls to get haircuts, Ellie requested hers to look like Lydia while Chloe insisted hers to be cut like Jenna's.

When my girls see them, they take off running like linebackers to get to them. (I'm afraid to step in their path for fear of being tackled and taunted by two little girls. I won't let that happen again.)

Lydia and Jenna have invested in my daughters. That's why a packing peanut has become a treasure to my daughter.

What a beautiful thought!

By simply investing in someone else, they can love you so much that something someone else would throw away becomes something treasured. All you have to do is spend time with them.

Be intentional about investing in someone else.

(Oh, and just to let you know, I threw the peanut away. Turned out that I didn't see it as priceless. I don't want to end up on Hoarders.)

Question:
What is your treasure that someone else might throw away?

 
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