A Frog Named Howard

Before our sweet daughter and her husband left for their round the world trip, she wrote this story on her blog www.theguestsofchance.com.  I was going through some things I had saved online and was struck by one of the lines in the story.  You will find it near the end.  Are you living someone else's story? Ask God to help you find the words to your story.   Praying for enough hugs to last you through the weekend.  Till tomorrow sweet friends.

A Frog Named Howard
Thursday July 7, 2011

 When I was a little girl, my dad would tell me these stories. They were kind of like those Choose Your Own Adventure books, except my sister and I got to make up all the characters and all the plot.

So he’d start with, “Once upon a time, there was a….” and he would stare expectantly at us until we shouted out, “rhinoceros!” or “flamingo!”

“And this rhinoceros/flamingo lived in a…” he’d stop, waiting.

“Treehouse!” or “Igloo!” or “Bathroom!”

There was always some kind of conflict, like the rhinoceros had lost his horn, or the flamingo wanted to learn how to ski. My sister and I would be in hysterics by the end, but we were always rapt – stories are always more interesting when you can build the plot yourself.

We spent the 4th of July with our nieces in Chicago. They’re seven and four years old, and early that morning I asked them if they wanted to hear a story.

“Once upon a time, there was a….” and I stared expectantly at them. 

“Well, what was there?” I whispered, prompting.

Their eyes got wide, and Jasmine, the older sister, said, “A frog?”

“There was a frog,” I nodded. “And his name was…”

“Howard!” she shouted. She’s a quick little kid.

As it turns out, Howard the Frog was under an evil spell from a witch. You see, Howard used to be a penguin. And he missed his penguin friends. And until he got a kiss from the Beautiful Princess Jasmine (of course), he would remain a frog in the jungle. 

Luckily, he got that kiss and poof! he was a penguin again. He moved back to “Arctica” (yup) where his friends were, but he missed his jungle buddies too. So he brought all his jungle friends to Arctica to live with him and his Ice Dolphin friends (yup) and they all lived - you guessed it - happily ever after.

They had me tell them several more of these stories over the weekend, and they loved each more than the last. And I started to think – how many of us wake up every day and live the story someone else is telling?

Each time we drive away from Chicago my heart breaks a little – leaving our friends, our family – I am almost overcome with guilt watching our dog cry at grandma’s door, 

I can only hope that all the people we love will realize that we are simply in the middle of a plot twist that requires we write ourselves away from all that is familiar. 

And if we’re lucky, soon enough we’ll build an igloo in the jungle and everyone we care about can come and live happily ever after – with the Ice Dolphins.