Thunder on Ellie's Mountain

Mary Englebreit

Ellie lay on the floor with my large box of crayons spilling around her, brown crayon poised at her cheek.  With her head tilted to one side, she studied her drawing in my nature journal. When the frown lines in her forehead deepened with concentration, I set my coloring aside.

Even though my frown lines also deepened with concentration as I focused with her on the picture, I could not see a problem.

She looked up at me and smiled. Her little freckled nose wrinkled up and she sighed.

"It's a chocolate chip mountain," she explained.

"Oh!" I said, nodding my head. "Like a Hershey Kiss Mountain!"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, clearly pleased that I could understand the mind of an artist. "And it's storming. I'm drawing thunder."

"Hmm. Do you know what thunder is?" I asked.

"No," she admitted. "Arthur is afraid of thunder," she whispered, even though her giant lap dog was not within hearing distance and could not be offended.

I smiled. Ellie is always eager for a new scientific fact. "Thunder is the loud crashing sound we hear when it's storming. It's a loud noise, El."

"Oh," she said, brow creasing again thoughtfully. "Well, then I am drawing limenting."

"Lightning?"

"Yes," she nodded, picking up her dropped crayon. "Limenting lighting up the sky."

Her intense focus was redirected to her work. I sat memorizing the moment.

A little child shall lead us.

We long to live our lives on a chocolate chip mountain where everything is happy and sweet. Scary uncertainties leave us disoriented. We don't know what to do so we do nothing.

Ellie is not one to do nothing. She chose the path of wisdom.

We do what we can do and we leave what we cannot understand to the God with thunder in His footsteps and limenting in His fists. We pick up our crayon and we go right on working.