Making of Heroes

An abbreviated version of this humble little story found its way to Family Heart Moments, by Turanksy and Miller, the newest release from Nation Center for Biblical Parenting


The kitchen fills with sobs and accusations.

"Caleb hurt me!" little Levi howls. He's holding his shoulder, face twisted in pain and hot tears.

I dry my dish-wet hands on apron, kneel down to wrap his heaving little body up in comfort. Slowly, the waves of tears ebb. With the back of his hand, he wipes away the wet sadness of his cheeks.

"Would a book and a blanket help?" I offer, smile when he nods.

With Levi's toes under a quilt, lost in turning pages, I quietly seek Caleb, the alleged perpetrator, skulking down in the orchard.

"Just listen to his heart," I admonish myself as I walk out across the lawn. Sometimes that's monumental. I pray.

I find Caleb leaned up under the limbs of the apple tree, blade of grass between his hands, thinking.

"You want to talk, son?"

"Did Levi tell you what HE did?" Caleb explodes. In a fury of storming defenses and whipping whirl of oratorical circles, I'm spinning, dizzy. I take a long, deep breath. Offer up another prayer plea. Shall we approach this from a different direction?

“This afternoon is already written, done."

"But what if all of today was the plot of a story you were reading? A page-turning epic and you're the main character. A young David-like boy. A hero boy. A boy willing to lay it all out for great things. How would the story go now?”

He digs a big toe dug into the grass. Hands search long and deep in pockets.

“Well…. I don’t know. Maybe a hero-boy would now serve the little kids a picnic out in the grove?”

Caleb looks up, tentative, unsure.

I'm smiling at this wisdom.

The young hero dashes off, full of plans.

Back at the sink, scrubbing pans, I watch them all through the window, Caleb smoothing out a blanket, Levi laughing as he helps too. Hope's snuggling Little Shalom close, waiting for the boys to make all picnic-ready.

Yes, these siblings brush up against each other wrong, bruise each other with words, frustration. But to find ways to reach out again and love, that's the wonder of grace.

I drain last suds from sink. If Caleb's serving crackers, couldn't I put together a fruit tray for that little love knot circling?

A pretty display of apples decorate the tray that I carry out to contribute to Caleb's picnic. But under the maples, I notice clumps of soggy garbage strewn about. Eyebrows arch questioningly. Levi, mouth full of cracker, offers an explanation. "Baby Shalom did that."

“Mmmm.” I juggle the tray and look over towards Hope stretched out on the picnic blanket's edge. “Hope, might you scoop that garbage up into a bag, please?”

Hope sighs, prepares to launch into a litany of reasons why she shouldn't have to do disgusting job.

But Caleb pipes up from his serving of crackers. “It’s okay, Hope. After I’m done serving here, I can do it for you!”

Our eyes catch, and lock. Knowing smiles spread. We're thinking of courage and men and women who write great stories with their lives.

As he races by me to retrieve a new garbage bag in the house, I quietly laud, “Quite the hero you are.”

From the top of the old stone stairs, he stops and turns.

“It's funny, Mom. I always thought heroes saved people out of burning building or rescued somebody from drowning. Something big. But it is actually about all this little stuff.”

Yes, son, being a hero is about all this staggering little stuff. Do I tell him that these little self sacrifices are the real wonders, the true miracles, out of which all the headlining marvels birth?

This little stuff is the weighty stuff of sacrifices and everyday heroes. This little stuff is the hardest stuff.

For is anything harder than being a living sacrifice?

As Goethe said, "We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to."

I understand, I know. I want to offer much in the grandiose. Because it seems easier to give God something large and grand. But we can't--not in the way we'd like to.

For our lives are really bits and pieces, snippets of moments, a mosaic of little things. And it is these little things we are seldom equal to.

The mundane, ordinary things are genuinely tremendous undertakings requiring Christ-courage.

Who has the courage to live a life of little, unnoticed sacrifices? Loving an angry child, making a bed, kneading dough in the kitchen. Voluntarily picking up a trail of discarded socks. Gratefully, folding up a damp towel abandoned on the bathroom floor. Carefully placing a tossed pair of shoes into the closet.

This is our life: a mosaic of little things, daily sacrifices in small, quiet pieces.

At its very essence, this Christ-life is about the little things being the greatest things of all. Christ Himself told us: Whoever wants to be great in God's kingdom must learn to be a servant of all. And when will I hands-and-mouth-and-feet-remember that this little stuff is the truly noble stuff—the Jesus-stuff? Didn't He too do great things that seemed so little: washing feet, and gathering children close on lap? Dying on a tree. In His kingdom heroes live hidden, medal-less lives, lives laid down.

To the Jews, a sacrifice is known as a "korban." The word "korban" comes from a Hebrew word meaning "[Come] Close [to God]." The way to become a hero is the same we come close to God: sacrifice.

The boy hero bags up the garbage. I hand out banana slices. And together we make courageous sacrifices in all this little stuff.

For these little sacrifices are our korban. Our everyday coming close to God.


Lord, today, give me the strength to sacrifice in the hardest ways of all: in the little things no one will ever know about.

In these little korbans, we come close to You.

::

Everyday Heroes sacrificing in the hardest, tremendous ways: David Fisher, Tonia Peckover, Mendelt Hoekstra

Photos: apples hanging in the orchard, a mosaic tray, a gift from a friend's Israel travels