are you big?

Here's the question...

Have you ever read a picture book geared towards, say, a four-year-old, and got really choked up? You find it hitting on some universal truth you'd never quite realized or touching some buried nerve regarding life and your place in it?

This happened to me when a librarian visited the preschool where I teach and read, Mo Willems' Are You Big.

In the story, the human depicted above is compared in size to a hot air balloon, then a storm cloud, then Australia, then the Milky Way, and so on.

It's all about how being "big" is a matter of perspective. Here's what it brought up for me...

We, as parents - who do and hold so much for others - can consider that we are big. We are big separate from what we do, produce, accomplish, provide. Your inner life and your outer safety is precious and valuable. What you feel and think and say matters.

We are also small. There's a world, a universe, a galaxy, a cluster of galaxies that we are a part of. We have some influence, but no real control. We are part of concentric circles of belonging that go on and on. We can relax a bit in our tininess.

I hope you can find peace and empowerment in being both big and small.