QUESNEY21 (Day4): The Heart of A Child

This is my entry for the STEEMmamas very first competition! If you are interested to join our awesome community of Mums you can find us here on discord at https://discord.gg/MVNw8NH

Lesson: True connections happen when you love and forgive like a child

We decorated the playground with paper lanterns

Last year in October during the mid-autumn Chinese festival we spent a night celebrating it by eating mooncakes and playing lanterns with some friends and their children. Some of the kids were around our sons' age, whilst most of them were school going kids between the ages of 7-10.

*Mooncakes! Yum!

I remembered that night because it was a night that had heartbreaking and heartwarming moments all rolled into the experiences and responses of my firstborn son. He was only about 3 and the half years old then, but you could have easily mistaken him for a 5-year-old because he was able to speak full sentences in proper English.

The older boys for reasons that we could not fathom apart from the idiosyncrasies of 10-year-old boys, did not want to play with him. They shunned him and made fun of him. They would not share their toys with him and would often run off on their own silly games leaving our small little boy running after them and calling out to them in his little voice asking them to wait for him.

Both hubby and I offered him all our attention and distracted him by playing candles with him. But we could tell, he was perplexed at the treatment that he was receiving. He was not angry in the manner of adults just in the childlike manner of bewilderment and a tinge of sadness that he could not understand. We spoke to him gently and kindly and a little later he was all excited again because he loved playing with fire and candles.

Papa set up a light box for him and his baby brother to play together

As our activities drew to a close, we all decided to take our lanterns for a walk around the playground before heading back home. We bought both our sons a traditional lantern that required candles and a battery operated one too. Chapati decided to carry the battery operated one. (Smart little guy...) Halfway through our walk one of the slightly older boy's lantern was snuffed out by the wind and he started to kick up a fuss because his lantern had no more light. To my astonishment, my son turned around to him and said "Kor-kor (Chinese for big brother) you can have my lantern, it still has light and I will carry yours, let me carry yours" They then proceeded to happily exchange lanterns and continued on their way. My son carried his lantern which had no light with such sincere cheerfulness, self-assurance and contentment that only a 3-year-old could!

My little man in blue, walking happily with his lantern on the left

The exchange of lanterns

My heart swelled with pride and I almost burst into tears at the way that it all turned out. I keep telling him what an awesome thing he did and I just could not wait to get alone with my son, hug him tight and tell him how incredibly generous of heart he was, how wonderful a son he was and how proud I was of him. I wanted to tell him that he made me so happy by his behaviour and actions. Suffice to say that the older boy was a tad bit nicer to him after that incident.

My child has such a capacity to love and forgive someone who had treated him badly and even offered kindness in return. I realised that I could do with a lot more of that in my life with the people that are closest to me. Imagine what our relationships would be like if we responded to each other in the same way? It would be heavenly. Very often, I know that I take them for granted, get grumpy over something small and stay in bad mood for a few days. What's the point? My son made me realised that doing that only makes thing worse for myself. Almost like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die...I know ironic. That night he reminded me again how to love the way God designed love to be.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4‭-‬7

So what is QUESNEY21? @joannewong and I are challenging each other to create great content for the next 21 days. Starting 26th of March and ending on the 15th of April. We needed the discipline and motivation that comes from being accountable to each other. Tell us if this is interesting to you, do you think you could benefit from your own QUESNEY 21?

Check out the other postings for this challenge:
QUESNEY21 (Day 1): Strangers On A Train
Quesney 21: Compilation of February 18 Meet-up Part 5
QUESNEY 21 (Day 2): Money Conversations with Millennials and Post-Millennials
Quesney 21 (Day 2): Teammalaysia CNY Gathering 2018
QUESNEY21 (Day 3): An Analogy For Your Steemit Wallet
Quesney 21 (Day 3): Steemit Bootcamp March 24th, 2018