No Longer A Spectator

Few people even noticed her, so small and quiet.  She was dressed in a toddler-sized Northwestern University cheerleading outfit, a long-sleeved white t-shirt underneath, fuzzy white cotton tights sagging at the knees, and a pair of grey and hot pink velcro sneakers that looked like an afterthought.  Her dark brown hair was loosely pulled back in an attempted limp ponytail, a purple ribbon holding on for dear life.  She sat between two large hulks of men, one of whom was her dad.  Her name was Mattie, a tiny waif of a girl, no more than four years old.  When I first noticed her, her dad was eating a disgusting foot-long hotdog and she was huddled over a small box of chicken strips, eating them quickly and deliberately as if in her short life she had already fended off an older brother or two.  The other man, who appeared to be her dad’s friend, was awkwardly trying to make the little girl laugh by occasionally putting her shiny purple pompoms on his head.  She looked at him quizzically as if she knew she was supposed to laugh to be polite, her eyes big and smile forced. 

With nary a word, she quietly watched the pageantry of the game, the bands moving in sync, the football players scrimmaging, and the real cheerleaders flitting cluelessly around.  But when the crowd rose to their feet to cheer the hometeam through a narrow squeak, she moved into action, grasping those pompoms tightly in her hands, her cherubic face now fierce and intense.  She was no longer a spectator but the most valuable player, part of the team, furiously pumping the pompoms as hard as she could, as if the entire outcome of the game was dependent on how hard she could shake them.

Pray like that.  Pray like you mean it. 

 

The prayer of the righteous

has great power in its effects.

                         James 5.17