Small things

Our school room certainly smelled like a biology laboratory. Asherel was bent over the new microscope, with pond water scum floating unappetizingly in the jars around her.  She had made her slides and was peering into the scope.
"What do you see!?" I asked.
"Nothing," she answered.
I elbowed my way into the Research Corner, and looked at the slide.
At first, it did indeed look like nothing, but then I focused the little knob and an ovular blog appeared. It had tiny squiggles inside it. I glanced at the biology book open before us.
"That's a paramecium!" I cried, triumphantly.
"You think?" asked Asherel dubiously.
"I am sure of it- it looks just like that picture."
Asherel looked at the paramecium, with less of the exultant enthusiasm one would expect after waiting a week for the new microscope to arrive, and then cleaned the mess up and dumped the pond water scum that had been brewing for weeks. It did seem a little anticlimatic. I think the paramecium was dead... or at least moving very slowly. I probably should have thrown a little coffee in the pond water. That might have made it more interesting.... paramecium on a caffeine high.

Meanwhile, in the other corner of the sunroom, the dog crate sat. Lucky has now slept relatively peacefully for two nights in a row, without barking at owls, chasing moonbeams at the top of his lungs, or seeing how much plastic crate a dog can swallow and still live.  The wire crate had been slightly unhooked at a corner, which was likely the result of the rattling that I had heard around 5 a.m., but it was intact, and Lucky was happy and peaceful when I let him out. I am not quite ready to declare victory, given the warning of the Titanic, that it was unsinkable. But I am hopeful.....

Little things sometimes give an abode of light. Little victories, little resolutions.  Had one never seen it before, when the sun first peeks over the mountain, one would never imagine that soon the whole earth would be filled with its brilliance.

I had a similar experience when I first encountered God. There were just little glimpses of Him. I would never have believed that given enough time, He would fill the screen.  Little things can become huge. A small sighting of a dead paramecium may spark the scientific career of someone who will cure cancer one day. A mustard seed becomes a mighty tree. A dog and its owners sleep through the night. A glimmer of faith becomes the whole world. Never despise the day of small things.


Zechariah 4: 9b-10
Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you.  ¹⁰ "Who despises the day of small things?