Elefun with Eliana!

This morning, after getting breakfast for Elly, snowblowing out the end of ours and our neighbor's driveways (because the snowplow plowed us in), helping Ben get ready for school, helping Ben complete one side of a Rubix cube, and then driving Ben to the bus stop, Elly and I enjoyed some Elefun!  Well, mostly Elly enjoyed Elefun and I enjoyed watching and taking pictures.  Elefun is a silly Hasbro game that Elly got a year ago for Christmas.  It is a blue elephant that blows butterflies into the air...just as all blue elephants do in the wild.  There are nets for 4 players.  The object is to catch as many of the beautiful butterflies as you can in your little net have lots of fun giggling and running around in circles as you try to catch butterflies into your net and pick them up off the floor when you don't quite snag them mid-air.

Honestly, I did not have much hope for Elefun this morning when Elly declared that she was going to play it.  You see, when we got Elefun from my brother and his family a year ago, I was very excited to partake in the butterfly catching.  I lined up with my three kids, nets in hand, ready to make my first capture!  We turned on the elephant, saw and heard the butterflies moving around in the trunk, and squealed with delight as the first few butterflies flew up into the air.  It was fun...but it only lasted briefly as just a few butterflies came out.  We turned the elephant off, detached the trunk, stirred up the butterflies, reattached the trunk, and turned the elephant on again.  "Hooray!" I yelled silently to myself as a few more butterflies started the climb up the trunk.  But, disappointment replaced excitement as once again only a few scawny butterflies escaped the grip of the blue elephant's flexible plastic trunk.  We repeated the trunk prepping several more times so that Elly could enjoy the brief bursts of butterfly bliss and then decided it was time to put Elefun back in the box "until another time" (wink wink).

               

I actually meant to return Elefun to ToysRUs, or at least exchange it, thinking there must be something defective with this sweet blue elephant that only wants to shower us with fun.  But, as with many things (including my Christmas cards waiting to go in the mail!!), I never got around to it.  He was rediscovered a few more times before we moved by an eager Elly, only to be reminded that it wasn't quite the excitement we expected.  He made it past moving screeners (i.e., Ken's junk patrol) somehow and into the moving pod as we packed up our home in Calgary.  Honestly, when I saw it come out of a box when I was unpacking, I let out a little sad sigh..."oh no, that poor disappointing Elefun made it to Minnesota...and now I can't even return it.  Oh well....." but did not have the heart to throw it away.

 

Well, miracle of miracles!  Today when Eliana turned on the little blue pachyderm, I heard her shout out, "HEY - It's not broken!!!  Elefun works!!!"  Sure enough, the little guy was chugging out the butterflies just as he should.  Suddenly, like the sunrise itself, it dawned on me...Elefun was finally working the way it should because it was on the hardwood floor, with a solid surface beneath it.  You see, my Elefun ignorant friends, Elefun has a wee button underneath it that is depressed (pushed in, not sad) when it is set down on the floor.  When it is depressed, the motor runs.  Apparently, the button was not being fully depressed on the carpeted floor that Elefun was previously played on.   Who knew?  The solid surface was what that cute little guy needed to function the way he was designed to function...to have purpose in pachyderm-ness...to bring the kind of joy only a butterfly spouting elephant can bring!

It is not a far stretch to where my mind went next.  In my life, I also need that solid surface, that firm foundation, on which to sand.  Without it, I simply cannot live out my purpose or be the woman I am meant or designed to be.  Without it, I am in a state of shifting my weight and doubting myself in order to find meaning and significance...just hoping I won't fall off in the midst of my search.  With the firm foundation (and I am talking Jesus here), I know that I am created with purpose, uniquely and wonderfully made, to live out a calling.  I may not always know exactly what that calling looks like from moment to moment; but because I have a solid footing, I know I am not going fall off completely trying to figure it out.  And, in the meantime, I can have the pleasure and joy that comes in showers of butterflies, watching my little girl laugh, solving a rubix cube, and even blowing snow from the end of the driveway.