Once there was a child who had problem and this problem was this. All of her friends would climb up to the top of the highest slide on the playground and slide down but, although she liked to slide on the smaller slide, she was afraid to go up to the top of the highest slide. And there was more to the problem; her friends sometimes teased her because she wouldn’t slide down the highest slide. Sometimes they called her "a baby".

Up to now whenever she thought about this problem she just got very tight inside and didn’t want to talk about it. When her friends called her a baby she just said, "No, I’m not. I just like the smaller slide better." But now she was starting to notice how exciting it was to go down the big slide and how much fun her friends were having and she wished that she could do it too. But she still was afraid.

She wanted to explain to someone about how she felt but she didn’t know who to talk to. One day when she was visiting her grandmother by herself, she said, "Grandmother, I want to talk to somebody about a problem but not my friends, or my teachers, or my parents." Her grandmother said, "Well, you certainly can share it with me, if you want to, or you could share it with God, like in a prayer."

"Share it with God in a prayer!" the girl replied, "How do you do that? Do you have to use special words, like Amen?" "No," her grandmother explained, "you can just talk like you would with anyone or you can sit quietly and just think and feel." "Don’t you have to go to a special place to pray, like church?" the girl asked. "No, you can be with God anywhere, although church is a good place," said her grandmother. "I saw some people pray once and they bowed their heads and put their hands in a special way. Do you have to do those things?" "Not at all," her grandmother reassured her, "Though bowing your head or closing your eyes or holding your hands together and near your heart is sometimes helpful."

"You can use any words, you can be anywhere and you can haveyour body anyway that is comfortable for you," her grandmother went on, "but there are three things you must remember when you pray." "What are they?" the girl asked. "The first is that when you share something with God, you also have to listen; the second is that sometimes you have to wait to hear God answer; and the third is that God may surprise you." "Thank you, Grandmother," the girl said as she hugged her. "I’m going to try sharing my problem with God and I will remember what you told me."

So when the girl went home, she went into her bedroom, sat comfortably on her bed and said, "Hi, God. I have a problem I want to share with you" and then she told God all about the high slide and the teasing and how she wished she could get brave enough to go down the slide now.

And then she waited quietly, listening. As she listened she heard same words going around in her head: "sliding–so high–scared–climbing–fun." And as she listened she heard some more words: "you go up the small slide–the big slide is just a few more steps–once you were afraid to let go in the water and swim but all of sudden one day you did it–when you are ready–you can do it"–and she wondered, "Is that God helping me with my problem?" That night as she slept she had a dream and in her dream there was a great huge slide that went all the way up into the clouds and in her dream she was climbing up the steps of the slide with God following behind her. When she got to the top she sat down and she heard God say, "Go!" and then, with a cry of "Here I go," she pushed off and slid all the way back to earth, and God did too. It was so exciting and wonderful that right away she did it again. When she woke up she remembered her dream and wondered, "Was God really there, in my dream?"

For several days she shared her problem with God, and she dreamed at night, and she went to school and looked at the high slide but she still went down the small one. Then one day a boy was sliding with her on the small slide and he said, "I want to go down the big slide but I’m afraid to do it by myself. Would you come over and climb up right behind me? If you were there with me I don’t think I’d be so afraid?" "Sure," the girl said, surprising herself, "I’ll come with you."

And so they went to the slide and the boy started climbing up and the girl climbed right behind him. When he got to the top, he sat down very carefully and then off he went, down, down the slide. "I did it," he yelled out, "because you were there and I knew I wouldn’t fall." All this time the girl had not been thinking about how high the slide was because she was thinking about helping the boy. Now she saw she was almost to the top. She just had one more step to go and she wasn’t afraid, well, not very much. So she climbed up the last she wasn’t afraid, well, not very much. So she climbed up the last step, sat down, and heard a voice within her saying, "Go, you can do it!!" and so down she went sucking in her breath with the thrill of it. And then the boy and the girl went up and down the slide over and over again.

That night again in her room, the girl said to God, "lt is good to be with you. I had to listen hard and I had to wait but you were with me. And you surely did surprise me today!! I didn’t know I was ready but I guess you did. Thanks, God, and oh, yes, Amen."