The woman in the red skirt walked up to the counter and laid down two bags of flour. There beside the register were the rest of her groceries.
"That everything?" asked the man behind the counter. He owned the general store, waited on her every Thursday as she came to town to do her shopping. He was a tall man, with big arms and a big belly.
"Yes," the woman in the red skirt replied, "I think that's it."
As the man rang up the order, a little face peered out from behind her red skirt. The man caught the young boy's eyes and smiled. "Why don't you get yourself a handful of suckers?" he said, pointing to the big jar that were just in front of the register.
The little boy's face retreated an inch behind the skirt.
"Oh, go on," the man said, "get yourself a handful of suckers."
The little boy's face retreated another inch.
The man laughed. "Well, here," he said, putting his hand down into the jar, pulling out a handful of suckers. At this the boy came out from behind his mother's red skirt and extended both his hands upward, receiving the suckers from the store's owner.
After the groceries were paid for and loaded up in the wagon, the woman in the red skirt was ready to head home, but first she turned to her son. "Why were you so shy in there? Why didn't you reach your hand in and get the suckers when he offered?"
Her son pulled the cherry sucker out of his mouth and looked up at his mother. "Because his hands are bigger than mine."
I pray to Him "who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or expect" (Ephesians 3:20).