The Little Girl and The Well
It was spring, and a little girl named Rebecca skipped and
danced through the grassy field near her farmhouse. Her
pigtails bounced up and down as she skipped and ran through
the field of bluebonnets and wildflowers. At the back of the
farmhouse was an old well. Her inquisitive mind wanted to
see what was inside the well and imagined what could be
hiding there. Instead of seeing something that might lurk in
her imagination, Rebecca saw a reflection of a little girl with rosy
cheeks, freckles, and auburn hair. She smiled at her reflection, watched the clouds roll, and played hide
and seek with her friends.
The next time the well saw Rebecca was in autumn when
she was a young lady. The well noticed that she was dressed
up with a pretty skirt and blouse, and on her feet were high
heels. Her makeup was perfect, and her hair was brushed, curled, and styled.
Rebecca walked up to the well and saw a different reflection.
She noticed imperfections with her hair
and weight and how she could improve. The well saw that the
little girl was changing and was not content with herself.
“I’ve got to hurry, or I will be late” was the last words
the well heard that reflected the young girl’s exact reflection.
New reflections could be seen now and then, and
the image looked different each time. One morning the girl’s
review was in a pretty wedding dress, and the next time, the well saw a reflection of a woman taking her little girl for
a walk.
The well saw several seasons of good and stormy weather
and observed that Rebecca did not have as much spring in her
step as before. There were seasons of summer, spring,
fall, and some frozen winters, but the woman survived. What
became clear is that despite the troubled times and pitfalls,
the young lady stayed hopeful. One fabulous winter day, the well-thought-about lady who used to visit and wondered what
had happened.
He waited for her return and wanted to know how her
life was going. An older woman walked by and the well
thought she looked familiar, but he hardly recognized her. The
reflection showed wrinkles, bags under her eyes, gray hair,
and a disposition that was “tired, run-down, and beat.” The
woman looked at her reflection in the well and started to cry,
“What happened to me? Is nothing left of my youth?”
The well said,
“It was replaced with something much better.” The
woman exclaimed in a puzzled voice,
“What can be better than youth?”
The well smiled through the ripples in the water.
“Rebecca, you have wisdom, grace, and more beauty
than ever before because each wrinkle reflects the moments
of good and bad that you have gone through. Each gray hair
on your head was placed there for the times you worried and
prayed for your loved ones and family. Swiftness had now
gone to your little girl, that likes to climb trees and jog along
the track. You are slowing down, but that’s OK. You rarely rest because there is still that “sparkle” in your
eye that “I’m not finished yet.”
The older woman smiled and said,
“You never worried about how you looked, and you are
getting rusted around the metal, and you have cobwebs where
you have not been taken care of.”
The well said,
“I never worried about how I looked because I wanted others
to see a positive reflection when they looked inside me. It was
more important that others saw the best in themselves.”
Rebecca pondered what a well would want to be and
then asked the question.
“What were you meant to be then?”
The well replied,
“Just a well and being what I was created to be is just
fine with me.”
The woman got reflective and said,
“You know, being what I was created to be is OK with
me too!
