Once
there was a little girl named Alisha who lived in a beautiful house in a
beautiful town. Alisha was a
sweet and charming little girl, and everyone who knew her thought she was one
of the nicest, prettiest children they knew.
Alisha had one problem, though.
Every morning, the sun would come up, and Alisha would sing, and laugh,
and enjoy the beautiful day. Then
in the evening, the sun would go down, and Alisha would cry and listen to sad
songs, wondering “What did I do wrong?
The sun is going away because something is wrong with me.”
Sometimes it would be cloudy in the morning, or a storm would roll in,
and Alisha would be sad again, wondering why she was so messed up that the sun
went away. And if the day was
sunny, then cloudy, then sunny, she didn’t know WHAT she’d done wrong.
And it wasn’t just the weather.
If one of her little friends fell down and got a bruise, she knew it
was her fault. If the cable went
out in the whole neighborhood, she wondered how she’d done it. If the Green Bay Packers lost a game, she’d spend hours
trying to figure out how she could be so messed up.
This was happening so much, the people in the town became
concerned – Alisha was even talking about moving away to someplace where she
wouldn’t screw things up so much. So
the townspeople sent a messenger to the far away place where the very wise men
lived, and asked them to send someone to help Alisha.
So one day soon after, as Alisha sat on the couch listening
to sad music and contemplating the cloudy day outside, wondering what she’d
done, there was a knock on the door. She
quickly opened the door (she was a very polite little girl, even when
depressed) and there, on the doorstep, was someone who CLEARLY was a very wise
man (he was wearing a badge that said “Very Wise Man”.
He said “Are you Alisha, the little girl who doesn’t understand how
she made the sun go away?” She said, “Oh, yes, Very Wise Man, I am!”
Then he said “Are you Alisha, the little girl who wonders how she
made the cable fail?” And
again, Alisha said “Oh, yes, Very Wise Man, I am!”
And then he said “And are you Alisha, the little girl who doesn’t
understand what she did to make the Packers lose?”
And practically jumping up and down (but she was too sad to do that)
she said “Oh, yes, Very Wise Man, that’s me!”
Then the Very Wise Man said “Little Alisha, the
people in this town love you and care about you.
They don’t want you to be unhappy and they don’t want you to move
away. So they asked me to come
and help you. Would you like
that?” And Alisha said “Oh,
yes, please, Very Wise Man – please help me!”
So the Very Wise Man took a very deep, very wise, breath…