Water Balloons and Prayer

Title caught your attention, huh? :)

In planning for this week, I told my class we could do one fun activity each day, outside of the normal day to day learning type activities we would be doing. I then let each student choose a fun activity. That way we'd have one a day :)

One guy chose for us to have a Water Balloon fight.

The problem was, the only water balloons I found were in a ziploc bag, all melted together and just didn't look hopeful. But still... We made plans. I sent a note home, for the students to bring in their towels and a change of clothes the next day.

Then this morning came. I took the bag of rough looking balloons to the sink outside and started the process of filling them. And balloon after balloon popped before they were even half full. I literally went through 20 balloons and NONE worked.

I panicked. 

I (not so smartly) planned for us to do this activity without fully checking the balloons first. I sent a note home and got the kids' hopes up before fully checking the balloons first. I knew if this didn't work, I'd have 4 super sad kids on my hand in less than an hour.

Then, I stopped, took a deep breath, and I prayed.

God, I realize this is my fault. I realize I messed up. But if there's any way this situation can be fixed, will you do it? If there's any way possible to salvage this situation so my kids can have a fun morning, playing in water, can you make it happen?

And in a totally cool way, I had the "strangest" feeling that I should check in one of my storage bins for more water balloons. ...which didn't make sense. I just knew there was no way they were in there. After all, I didn't have any more water balloons.

But I checked.

And guess what I found.

Yep, water balloons.

4 brand new packs, at that.

...more than I needed.

I know I bought them, but I thought for sure, we'd already used them.

So I went out, filled my tub full of water balloons and then drug it back to my classroom (since I still can't lift anything heavy with my left hand). And I waited... I waited for my crew to get to school and for the time to come for us to go have fun together.

And fun, we had.

And through it all, God taught me a valuable lesson.

Sometimes our first instinct is to whine

 and complain 

and lose hope.

But why?

Why don't we FIRST go to God in prayer?

Why don't we ask God for help BEFORE whining and complaining and losing hope?

And yes, I realize this is a somewhat simplistic example of this.

But sometimes God gives us simplistic examples to help us see things more clearly.

And for that, I'm grateful. 

I'm grateful for water balloons

and happy kids

and answers to prayer

and most of all, for a God who loves me so incredibly much

that He gives me the wants in my heart, along with the needs.