The Problem with Cotton Balls

I shared this story with my congregation yesterday to encourage them to think about how to hear God’s voice…

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved her mother very much. She and her mom used to pick flowers together when they would visit the park. They would roll around in the grass and have tickle fights with each other. After all, it was only the two of them, but they didn’t mind so much because they loved each other so much.

One Summer, the two of them went swimming in the city pool, and the daughter got some water in her ear that eventually developed into a rather serious ear infection. It was so bad that by the time they got her to the doctor, she couldn’t hear very well. The cotton balls they made her wear in her ears didn’t help the situation either.

That didn’t stop them from having fun, though. The next Saturday, with ear medicine and cotton balls in place, they went back to the park. They rolled around tickling each other. They picked flowers and stuck them in each other’s hair, and then the mom sat down for a moment to rest while the little girl went to play in the sandbox.

A few minutes later though, the girl was startled by the shadow of a person standing behind her. She quickly looked up, but couldn’t tell who it was because of the glare of the sun.

She immediately jumped up and ran back to where her mother had been resting, but her mom wasn’t there, and to make matters worse, the shadow was chasing after her.

The little girl began to panic. Running all around the park, she began to scream and yell for her mom. Where are you, mom!? But with the cotton in her ears, she couldn’t hear if her mom was calling back.

Tears began streaming down her face as she ran—the wind pushing them back to her ears. Screaming, crying, and scared, she wasn’t fast enough to outrun the stranger who finally caught her, but this time, when she turned her head, she saw that it wasn’t a stranger at all. It was her mom who had been chasing after her the whole time, yelling at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face.

They embraced and collapsed on the grass together in a heap.

But sure enough, it wasn’t long before one of them poked the other in the side, and without delay, they were tickling each other again.