The Dog and the Yellow Ball

Yesterday, Benjamin and I went to a nearby park for a playdate. We had a very unusual encounter as we were getting ready to leave. It went something like this...

I'm standing next to Benjamin, talking to a friend and her daughter when a lady comes up to me with a tight grip on Benjamin's yellow ball. This lady refuses to let the yellow ball out of her clutches while speaking very intensely to me.

Intense Lady: "Please lady, can you hold your ball? I saw that you brought that ball in and no one is playing with it. Can you hold your ball?"

I'm repeatedly try to take the ball out of her hands, but she won't let go.

Intense Lady: "You're not playing with your ball, and my dog loves balls. You need to hold your ball or he will pop it. I want to take him off the lead."

Benjamin stares at intense lady who still will not let go of his ball.

Me: "Give me the ball."

Lady does not let go of ball.

Me: "I will hold the ball, but this is a children's park. We are leaving soon. Please wait to take your dog off the lead until we leave so he doesn't jump on my child or try to get our ball."

Intense Lady: "He is very child-friendly. My dog is very child-friendly. But he will pop your ball."

Me: "Please leave your dog on the lead. This park is for kids."

Intense Lady: Finally releases the ball and says, "My dog is just fine," and goes to take her dog off lead.

We are bewildered. It's almost time to go, and Benjamin is itching to try the see-saw - and also too tired to try the see-saw. I set the ball at my feet and lift him onto the see-saw seat.

Nine seconds later, a torpedo bulldog runs by and sinks his teeth into Benjamin's yellow ball. To Benjamin's horror, the torpedo bulldog and a dog in a sweater proceed to make a game out of throwing around the now flat yellow ball. The intense lady comes up waving her hands and telling me she told me to hold my ball. A chaotic scene involving other intense ladies and their dogs leaping for the flying piece of yellow plastic ensues while the intense lady keeps shouting that her dog loves balls.

Benjamin blinks, silenced by his shock...

I'm trying to tell the intense lady she does not need to buy me another ball, and, no, I will not meet her at this park the next day while the leaping dog chaos continues. Once the yellow ball debris has been removed from the dogs' mouths, the torpedo pitbull bolts INTO our friends' bag and retrieves the soccer ball.

Intense Lady is wildly charmed at how much her dog likes balls and astounded at why we allowed her dog to eat our balls. We evacuate the scene immediately. Guys... this actually happened. It was so weird.

The moment we got in the car, Benjamin started replaying the scene over and over again. He told as much of the story as his limited vocabulary allowed, again and again.

"Woof, ball, gone, woof, no, ball, ball, woof..." On and on. His emotions and story-telling escalated, so I started repeating the story back to him. I held his hand and squeezed while he talked and I drove. (Not recommended. He sits in the backseat, and I drive a manual transmission.) I reminded him that, right before we had left for the park, his dad had brought him a new red ball home. (Before anyone gets too nostalgic over a yellow ball, please note that it costs R11.50... that's 85 cents in US dollars. I bought 3 last time I was at the store.) I talked about we could go home and play with his red ball, and the dog was going home too. I told stories out loud while squeezing that little hand about what we would do at home and what that dog might be doing at his house. When we pulled into the high school parking lot to wait for Lifa to finish rugby practice, I climbed into the backseat and FaceTimed Chris so Benjamin could tell his daddy what happened.

Later, in the bathtub, Benjamin's usual bubbly songs were replaced with the word "gone" again and again while he handed me all of his yellow bath toys. Eventually, he started talking to me about the dog again. But this time, he was telling me the dog was at home, and the dog was going ni-night. We told the dog goodnight, and that was that. He has not mentioned it once since.

It was AMAZING to watch Benjamin work through something hard. Sure, a dog popping an 85 cent ball seems like a small problem on the scale of problems in the world. Not to mention there was already a new one at home. But it impacted him. I watched him spend an extra-emotional evening working through big feelings and one of the biggest problems he's faced. I witnessed his process with wonder and thought about how we all have problems. Our own biggest problems come in different shapes and sizes, but they are still our biggest. We have all replayed an offense over and over again and been overwhelmed by emotion.

I was thrilled when Benjamin's bathtub chatter shifted from "Gone" to "Woof home. Woof ni-night." He spent an evening grappling with loss and violation, but he didn't stay there. In Benjamin's story of the dog and the yellow ball, the dog went on with his life and so did Benjamin. Everyone went ni-night. Everyone still loves balls. We didn't like what happened, but it's just what happened.

Although we had a little extra frenzy and feelings in our evening, I went to bed telling Chris how much joy I had in my heart that night. It was an awe-inspiring experience to watch Benjamin work through a problem and find resolution within himself. And it was just so wonderful that the biggest problem he's had to face in his 26 months of life is that dog taking his yellow ball. That was not the case for Lifa.

Problems are ok. Problems are part of life. They help us become who we are. - for better or worse. When processed in the context of a relationship with Jesus and others, problems are launching pads and sharpening stones, relationship forgers and dream evolvers. They keep us from doing life alone or apart from God. I pray I can help my kids become stronger in the face of their adversity, no matter the shape or size. We are raising young men who are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus (Romans 8), and there is not limit to who they can become when their problems become their ammunition!