Ten older girls are each handed a bottle of nail polish, quickly choosing their favorite color as they find seats alongside joyful "chiquitas," anxious to have their fingers and toes glistening with pink and purple. Such a picture as this is ordinary for a room bustling with girlieness; it's familiar to me, striking chords from sleepovers and summer camps, birthday parties and New Years' resolutions that "This year will be the year I stop biting my nails."
I watch carefully as little girl after little girl skips about the room, flashing her new nails sprinkled with glittering patterns. Nearly two hours pass, and not one finger appears sloppy. It's art for the older girls, who are undoubtedly becoming women faster than I can blink. Perhaps this is why I feel myself tearing up. Or maybe it has something to do with the beaming faces of the little ones as simple loveliness is added to their day, matching their radiant personalities. But even more so, I think it's this:
The hand that is holding the other has no inkling of the role it's playing- the tender way it's loving and ministering and granting hope. But this hand is the hand of a shepherd, of a girl quickly fostering into a woman, contributing beauty to a child. She showers pink into her little life, and as she does I feel the Lord smiling over this room. This room of laughing chiquitas and diligent ladies who hunch over to offer color and beauty to those younger than themselves. The more they squint their eyes to master their colors and designs, the more they exude tenderness for the hand they're holding. And the lower they bend, the more I see their gleaming hearts, dazzled for serving. Truly, they've never been more beautiful to me.
"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:18
-Betsy Coughlin
Summer Volunteer for Dove Missions
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