Barbie Toys

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Every year, I looked forward to summer.  The weather was warm, school was out, and my Mom, Dad, little brother and I took a trip each August to our family in Iowa.  

Marcia, my cousin, was my age.  We got along during our visits just like we had been together all year, instead of just two weeks.  We played with her new kittens, we dressed up and played our tennis racket guitars and we sat in her cherry tree eating cherries.

One of the days, my parents and Marcia’s parents, Marcia and I went to see my grandmother.  While the parents were in, visiting with grandma, Marcia and I went next door to the house of a little girl that Marcia knew.  While playing outside, the little girl brought out armful after armful of Barbie’s and accessories.  This little girl had so many Barbie’s, clothes, shoes and purses, I was amazed.  Everything Barbie just kept coming out of her house into our waiting hands.

I can remember the feeling that I had that day and it wasn’t good.  I wanted this little girls Barbie stuff and in my heart, I burned with desire for these colorful little plastic things.  I had my own Barbie’s at home but nothing like this collection of amazing stuff.  

“I could slip a few pair of shoes or a purse into my pocket, she would never miss them,”  I thought.  That wasn’t a good feeling it was a feeling of greed and want.  It was actually painful, like what I had was not good enough and maybe this plastic pair of pumps might make me feel better, or would it?  

At  times my life has been a real struggle, especially the last year.  Money has gotten tighter and tighter, and sometimes I feel that same burning desire that I felt that day when I was a kid.  Looking around at what others had made me feel like, “If I just had…!”  

Then one day my son said something so simple but it changed my outlook, and made me count my blessings, instead of compare.  I had just apologized to my 19 year old son, Elijah for not having much, and what he said shocked me into reality.  He said, “Mom, we have so much, food, clothes, a place to live, a lot of people don’t have as much as us, and God has never let us go hungry.”

I thought about it and he was right.  My focus had been on what we didn’t have instead of how much we do have.  Jesus even said, “The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things, come in and choke the word making it unfruitful.”  

And in Galatians 5:16, it says, “So I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.

So now what I understand is that I had been led by my sinful nature.  It was that nature that wanted those Barbie shoes, and what I need to do is; let the Holy Spirit lead me and then I will be fruitful and I will have joy and peace and it won’t matter what I own on the outside, happiness will come from within me.  That is lasting happiness as compared to the small amount of happiness I might have had by slipping that red pair of heals into my pocket.