Paper. It’s an issue in our house. And by an issue, I mean that I sweep up piles of it almost every day. My girl Cadence, she’s an Autistic wonder. She’s truly amazing to me and a gift to our family. And she is serious about paper. She has a special spot that she sits at. It’s her bench at the kitchen table and this is where she colors, plays on her iPad, eats her frozen bananas and shreds lots and lots and lots of paper.

She mounds up paper and cardboard on the table and it falls onto the floor and then she gets up, steps through it and tracks it all over the house as she walks to her room to shred magazine pages.  Then she steps through all those shredded magazine pages and tracks the shreds through the house as she walks back to the table to play on her iPad or shred more cereal boxes.

Some people might find this constant paper issue bothersome or aggravating.  I admit, sweeping is not on my top 10 list of things I love to do, but Cadence is on my top ten list of people I love and so in the scheme of life and the big picture of eternity, really, what’s a little paper?

With a kid like Cadence, who doesn’t talk and can’t tell you what she feels or thinks, you always wonder what’s going on in her head and if she’s ok.  Is she happy?  When it comes to the whole paper thing, I know it makes her happy.  Maybe shredding paper doesn’t promote great or “appropriate” behavior.  Maybe it’s not profitable.  But it makes her happy.  And so sweeping up a little paper makes me happy too because I can let her have something that she likes.

Maybe there’s someone in your world that you can make happy too.  It might cause you a little work.  It might even be annoying.  But really, in the scheme of life and the big picture of eternity what’s a little work?  Especially for someone you love.

So if you stop in at my house without giving me adequate warning to sweep up the paper, you’ll find magazine shreds in the floor.  And when you get home you might find them stuck to the bottom of your shoe, under your car mats or floating in your bathtub.  When you reach down to pick it up, say a prayer that we can all give a little of ourselves for the sake of someone we love and be happy about it at the same time.