Mold Me

"Grandma, let's play a guessing game," Aiden said after his parents dropped him off at his grandmother's house for the afternoon. "I'll tell you a riddle about what I have in my backpack, and you try to guess what it is. Here goes. I come in lots of colors. I am constantly changing. You've most likely played with me. Guess what I am!""Hmm." Grandma rubbed her forehead. "Can I have another hint?""Nope. Time's up!" Aiden reached into his bag and pulled out some plastic containers. "It's playdough!""That was a good one!" said Grandma. "I suppose you're going to want to take that stuff out of the containers now, aren't you?" Aiden smiled and nodded, and for the next hour, Grandma and Aiden squished and molded the playdough into every shape they could think of. "Yesterday I looked online to find facts about playdough for a project at school, which made me think to bring some here," Aiden said as he rolled a piece of yellow dough across the table. "Did you know that it was first invented in the 1930s as wallpaper cleaner? Or that over three billion containers of playdough have been sold? That's enough playdough to stretch all the way to the moon!" Aiden put the last piece of dough in place and showed off his creation. "Look, a hamburger and French fries!" "Mmm, yummy!" Grandma pinched the end of her ball of blue dough to make a fin. "I made a blue whale.""Cool!" said Aiden. "I love playdough. You can make anything with it!"Grandma nodded. "Yes, it's fun to play with. But did you know we can learn from it too?" Aiden shook his head. "God's children should be like playdough in His hands," said Grandma. "Playdough is soft and workable, allowing people to shape it however they think is best. And we need to be the same with God, letting Him shape our attitudes and desires so we'll be more like Jesus.""So, just like playdough, God will mold us the way He knows is best?" asked Aiden.Grandma nodded. "We can trust Him to shape us into the people He wants us to be--people who reflect the love of Jesus to others." -Lucinda J. Rollings