As Time Goes By, It May Be Nothing at All

While preparing for my son’s birthday, I stopped by a balloon shop. I remembered him once saying how much he’d love to wake up to balloons floating by his bed. So I decided to buy a helium balloon for him.

Grabbing the balloon that tugged to break free, I managed to get it into the car. When I was about to head home after stopping by another store, I saw the balloon floating in the car. It seemed that some helium gas had leaked out of the balloon, probably because of the hot weather. Since there were two days left until my son’s birthday, I began to worry that the balloon would get deflated and fall to the floor before the big day.

I headed back to the balloon shop to ask for a refund, because I didn’t want to let my money and effort spent on it go to waste. When I arrived at the shop and opened my car door to take out the balloon, something unbelievable happened: it had become inflated again. So I got back into my car to drive home. All the way home, I kept looking in the rear-view mirror, hoping that the balloon would stay inflated.

When I got home, the balloons had lost some of its gas, as I had feared. Looking at the saggy balloon, I got so upset that I firmly decided never to waste my time or money on something like this balloon.

More than ten days had passed since then, and I saw the partially deflated, wrinkled balloon floating above my son’s desk. Seeing its shape, I felt like it was scolding me who was still clumsy and got angry over small things, despite being an adult.

Besides this balloon incident, there were many moments when I easily lost my temper over little things. Those moments flashed through my mind, and the lyrics of a New Song kept running through my head.

“As time goes by, it may be nothing at all. Yet, my proud, sinful nature became thorns that stung your heart. Turning my back, defending my weakness, I was wrong, yet I felt I had no choice. Oh, my sinful nature, my poor soul!…”(A New Song titled “Cleanse Me From My Sin”)

I’m afraid that I might have hurt many of my Zion members with my thoughtless words and actions, unable to hold back my anger. I may have had my own reasons for frowning or complaining at that time. Perhaps I wasn't feeling well, or something I had poured my heart into didn’t go as planned. My desire to do better might have led to anxiety, weighing heavily on my heart. Or maybe I prematurely assumed that an uncomfortable situation would last for a long time, which led me to an outburst of frustration and distress.

But no matter how difficult the situation seemed to be at the time, it passed quickly. Come to think of it, it wasn’t something worthy getting angry over.

Thinking of the balloon still floating in the corner of the room, I will try to keep smiling even in moments of discomfort or anger, singing New Songs.