The Fish Bowl

Jack, a 9-year-old elementary student, is sitting at his school desk. All of a sudden there is a puddle between his feet, and the front of his pants are wet.

He thinks his heart is about to stop, because he knows when the boys find out, he'll never hear the end of it. And when the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again.

The boy puts his head down and prays this prayer: "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat." He looks up from his prayer, and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he's been discovered.

As the teacher is coming to snatch him up, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl filled with water. She stumbles and dumps the goldfish bowl in his lap. He pretends to be angry but prays, "Thank you, Jesus!"

Now, rather than being the object of ridicule, Jack is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. When he comes back to class, all the kids are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The turn of events and the unexpected sympathy are wonderful!

But as life would have it, the ridicule that belongs to Jack has been transferred to Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out: "You've done enough, you klutz!"

Finally, at the end of the day, Jack and Susie are waiting at the bus stop. The boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "Susie, you did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."

In the moments of another person's discomfort, the Lord calls us to "dump the water out of our fishbowl" and do a kind act for someone else.

- Author Unknown