I opened the patio door and let the cold, harsh winter air in just for a moment. I was cleaning up the back patio stairs, and noticed purple glitter all over our steps trailing down along the cement toward the garden. “Do you guys know who dumped purple glitter outside?” I asked the kids, quite perplexed.
“That was Little Miss E,” they said (a cute name I made up just for this post for anonymity). I looked around, amazed, thinking, “Its everywhere!” Throughout the day and into the next, I continued to bring items outside for recycling and my eyes were drawn to the purple glitter, dazzlingly spilled all over our steps. It started to grow on me. It started to become endearing. I smiled with amusement each time I opened the door.
Little Miss E is our sweet, dear 5 year old friend who comes to visit us often. Dressed in a princess dress, carrying a purse, or wearing strands of little girl necklaces, she plays in the communal backyard, and knocks on our door for our kids to come outside and play. This is one of the things I love the most about our community where we live. Children are always coming by to say hello, to play, and to just chat. And we chat with them. We listen to their thoughts, we ask them questions. I want our home to always be welcoming to little ones, that they may sense the love of Jesus here, that Jesus welcomes them, and that we are always willing to talk.
Working this morning at the campus childcare center, we had taken the kids to the playground to play. I was pulling the little red wagon with two children sitting snuggly inside. As I circled the playground on the asphalt path, I looked down and there it was, more purple glitter! I saw more later on along the sidewalk to our building, and more at the picnic area, and still more sprinkled all over crisp, dry fallen leaves. I smiled. Little Miss E. She’s been here too! Like little whisps of fairy dust sprinkled around campus, she was leaving her mark of purple glitter wherever she went, coloring the bleak winter with purple hues that shimmer and shine in the sunlight, making our community sparkle with her laughter and smiles, and her sweet friendship.
And the Lord their God will save them in that day
As the flock of His people;
For they are as the stones of a crown,
Sparkling in His land.
Zechariah 9:16