The Wish

The Wish(Anthony Colombo) THE WISH




Hi! My name is Alyssa, and I would like to tell you a story about a wish.

One day I was having a tea party with my dolls in our garden when I heard a tiny voice calling for help.

I looked around and in my mother’s flowerbed, I saw a very small man.

The man said that he had come to visit his friends who lived in my mother’s flowers. He told me that while he was looking for them, he became tangled in a vine and could not get loose.

Carefully, I removed the vine, and the little man was very grateful.

He said, "You have been so kind that I have to give a reward.”

He paced to and fro thinking. Finally, he sat on, what he called, his special thinking stone.

Suddenly, he said, “I have it! I’ll grant you one wish. Anything you want; all you have to do is wish for it.

Gosh, there are so many things to wish for. I paced to and fro thinking, but I did not have a special thinking stone.

Finally, the little man had to leave, but before he went, he said, “Do not worry the wish is still yours. All you have to do is say, ‘I wish,’ and what ever it is will be yours.”

I ran to tell my mother what had just happened. She was in the kitchen ironing clothes.

My mother said, “Boy if it were my wish, I would wish that I would never have to iron any more clothes!”

My father was in the driveway working on our car. When I told him, he said, “Well, honey, I would wish for a new car. This old wreck is not going to last much longer.”

My brother was in his room, and he told me, “The big game is tomorrow. If it were my wish, I would wish for a new catcher’s mitt.”

Then I saw Mister Jones our neighbor. He was sitting on his front step reading his newspaper.

He told me that the city needed a new fire truck. He said, “I think I would wish for a new fire truck.”

Police officer Mike was walking past and he said, “The county needs a new hospital. Why not wish for a new hospital?”

Later Alyssa went to school. In the schoolyard near the swings, she told her classmates what had happened. They too had things to wish for. Some never wanted to go to school again, and one boy wanted all the candy he could eat.

All these wishes, even the silly ones were good, but none seemed important enough to waste the only wish she had. “Boy, what should I wish for? I still need help!”

While Alyssa didn’t have a thinking stone, she did remember a story that her Sunday school teacher Mrs. Clarke told her.

A reading from the first book of kings:
The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” Solomon answered: “O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?”

So you see, sometimes wishes are good things and with God’s help, Alyssa and all of us will know just what to do.