Winds of Change

The after-school kids' shows were still on when I heard the screen door fly open.  Soon both girls had deserted their perch in front of the tv for the great outdoors.  I went to see what the attraction was, and I saw they were engulfed in a gust of swirling leaves, hands raised and feet dancing.  The air was suddenly cooler, blowing invigorating energy into our surroundings. 

Unable to resist the fresh air, I smiled in amusement from our screened porch  at joy the children were having with their frolicsome playmate, the wind. Long hair blowing straight behind them like a flag in the stiff breeze, one a pony's tail flying behind her in the gale, they leaped in great bounds, the billowing wind giving  its buoyant support.

Two school boys came ambling by,  pushed by the wind and carrying a box of fund-raiser chocolate bars. My friendly granddaughter directed them to the house, even though she had gotten to us first last week with the project.  The boys dallied, the girls chattered, pointing, hopping and dashing with the teasing wind, until their new playmates seemed to remember the work at hand and went in search of more customers.

On their way back down the street, the salesboys' now-empty box provided even more fun when it was grabbed by the wind, retrieved, worn on the head like a helmet, flaps pulled over ears, as the boys showed off for their appreciative admirers.  Soon the girls' mother came to pick up my baby-sitting charges, and our street grew quiet again as the wind died down. 

The children's rosy, flushed cheeks as they drove away gave evidence of their healthy exercise and rejuvenating play, no doubt with the same warmth and tingling in their limbs I remembered after playing outdoors as a child.

The refreshing of the wind made me think of the winds of the Holy Spirit.  It first came on the day of Pentecost with the "...sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting." Acts 2:3.  This wind changed the people it touched, and they changed the people they touched.  They became engaged with their neighbors, unable to keep their joy to themselves.  The Bible says about 3,000 people were added to the church that day.  There is something about the Wind!