The Hunt

Plastic eggs dotted the thick grassy patch near our home. Yellow, blue, and purple mixed in with the lush green. We lined the kids up on the sidewalk and gave Kiki and her little friend, Ryan, a head start on the hunt.

“On your mark. Get set.…Go!”

Karly and Ryan’s older brother, Kyle, flew past the younger ones without looking back. They were focused—eggs, candy, eggs, MORE candy!!

Karly raced toward the lamppost, climbed under bushes, and pushed back leaves, quickly filling her white basket with color.

Kiki picked up a pink egg and grinned, holding it up to me.

“Good job,” I said before egging (smile) her on. This was a hunt, after all. A race for more. “Get another one. Go. Go.”

By now, Karly had already plucked up ten...or maybe fifteen. Kyle’s basket was loaded too.

Clutching her pink egg in one hand, Kiki meandered through the grass until she saw another egg. Orange. She reached down, picked it up, and presented it to me with a smile.

“Great job, Kik. Now put it in the basket so we can get another one.”

She pulled the egg to her chest and hugged it. “No!”

Karly bolted past us like lightening. There weren’t going to be many eggs left.

I pleaded with her. “C’mon, Kiki. Don’t you want some more eggs?”

She held out her two eggs, gazing down at them like they were precious jewels. Then she kissed them. “No.”

“But, honey, you’re supposed to put them into the basket so we can get some more… (more, more, more).”

What was I doing to my kid? Why did she really need a basketful of eggs? Here she was happy. Satisfied. Completely pleased with her find. I was the one breeding discontent, begging her to want more.

A local church recently did a sermon series on the idols we often worship unaware. Two of them were the idol of instant gratification and the idol of consumerism (always wanting more).

Ouch! Here I was pressing these idols (you can never have enough Easter Eggs!) onto my almost two-year-old without even thinking.

Instead of pushing her forward again, I knelt down and gave her a giant hug. Then we admired her two plastic eggs. She was so proud! And I was proud of her. She’d done great, and she stopped when she had enough--one for each hand.

Besides, who really needs more than two plastic eggs?