Susie pressed her hands to her cheeks.

“It’s so sad,” she whispered, looking gloomily at the dark pantry walls.

Several empty jars returned her despondent look and proved the veracity of her words. A sticky bit of goo ran down the shelf and dripped miserably to the wooden floorboards.

“All gone.” Susie tapped her hand gingerly into the sticky sweetness and tested it. “So very, very gone.”

The pantry was a hidden bit of closet and with the door closed it was quite dark except for a little window.

Pressing her hands up against her face, Susie wailed.

“No more jam,” she ended in a whisper, “and it’s not even lunch time yet.”

 

 

“Is it so sad?” Said a voice.

Susie jumped and looked around while patting her face to soak up the tears.

A pretty little butterfly waved its wings at her from the window sill.

“Hello,” the butterfly dipped down to rest on one of the empty jars, carefully avoiding the stickiest places, “you know, it’s kind of silly to be so sad,” she finished with a sympathetic smile.

“It is?” Susie replied.

“There’s more strawberries in the garden.”

Susie’s face brightened. “What was I thinking?”

 

The butterfly smiled and held out a hand. “It’s okay. It happens to all of us–you know, perhaps its the things that are right in our backyard that are sometimes the easiest to forget.”

And with that, Susie and the butterfly set out to fill a basket with strawberries.

“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22,23

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:” Psalm 103:2

Post updated on 01/01/21