Lil Bit and Moon Beam; two friends

Lil Bit and Moon Beam; Two Friends Enjoying an Afternoon in Heaven

            By Nita Wilson

 

Lil Bit and Moon Beam have been best friends for… oh…

about four hundred years.  They met one day while being tossed in the air by Jesus; one of his favorite games with baby angels.  Moon Beam went up as Lil Bit was coming down, both angels eyeing the other as children will do when noticing each other for the first time.

        Moon Beam is brown and Lil Bit is white, but they both have white wings and golden halos.  When you see them together on a cloud or sitting on a log by the creek, they look like book-ends without the books.  Of course there are many differences, Lil Bit loves strawberries and Moon Beam is allergic.  Moon Beam loves cats and Lil Bit is a dog person.  Moon Beam speaks French and Lil Bit speaks Italian.  Lil Bit loves Cheerios and Moon Beam loves Apple Jacks and on and on go the differences. 

Strangely the two bonded like sisters from day one.  Maybe because Moon Beam knocked Punkin Seed off his perch on the big avocado tree when he was calling Lil Bit names and making her sad.  He knew this was not allowed, but sometimes, as everyone in Heaven knows, he just can’t behave himself.  It has caused him to miss many fun outings and have to take a time out in Jesus’ lap instead of looking for Easter eggs with the others, but he is incorrigible as Abby Father says.

This particular day he was in trouble for putting red berries in the drinking water and telling the little ones it was wine.  Lil Bit was excited; she was finally old enough to taste wine and when she drank from the well, Punkin Seed called her a silly girl angel for drinking berry water and threw more red berries on her gown causing it to change from white to red splattered.  He laughed so loud and so long, everyone came to see and hear the joke.  Some of the other baby angels followed Punkin Seed and laughed as did some of the little children from earth, but the laughter was on the other side when Moon Beam hit Punkin Seed upside the head with a loaf of rye bread and knocked him out of his tree.

“So Punkin Seed, can’t you take a little ‘rye’ humor.”  She mocked and laughed until all the others were now laughing at Punkin Seed.

Lil Bit wiped her eyes with her now red spotted gown and looked at this new friend who was standing over her, hand outstretched to help her up, moving her little brown hand over Lil Bit’s gown to take away all the berry splatters.

“Boys are not nice people, Lil Bit.  You have to show them who’s boss.  Come on, let’s go watch the fire works, Lucifer’s wife is giving him ‘what for’ for coming home late with a strange city woman.”  The two best friends flew to a large cloud overlooking earth and beyond and watched as thunder rose and lightning flashed way past earth and beyond.

“Whew, she’s sure mad this time, Moon Beam.”  The two giggled as only little girls can and Moon Beam leaned her head on Lil Bit’s shoulder.  God was pleased; now he had to talk to Punkin Seed, yet once again.

        This particular day, Lil Bit wanted to go fishing.  Now in Heaven one doesn’t use a fish hook, one sits on the bank with a fishing pole and a line in the water.  On the end of that line could be a nice chocolate chip cookie, or a P.B.&J, but always something a fish would like to eat.  The fish eats what it wants and then pulls the line to let the person with the pole know he’s had enough and is willing to visit.  Then it follows the line to the surface, says a nice polite, “Howdy.” And a nice afternoon visit commences.  Maybe the fish wants to discuss the tadpoles that have been picking on it under the water, darting in and out to make the fish nervous, or an old gator hanging around looking at the fish with hungry eyes; or just something he’s been thinking of that needs saying.  Either way, the fish and the fisherperson converse, laugh, tell jokes and have a good time.  So much better than having a nasty hook imbedded in a gill etc.  If you want to eat a fish in Heaven, you ‘think it’ and a nice broiled trout in drawn butter appears on your plate with a bright yellow lemon wedge, or perhaps some nice catfish fillets fried and accompanied by a few hushpuppies, or a broiled salmon with pine nuts and garlic butter, but no fish was harmed in the process.  But I digress.  This particular fish was a favorite of the two angels and had been telling them about a sunken pirate ship he’d been haunting.  There was treasure and ‘booty’ as the pirates used to call it and interesting things not usually found under water.  Now the girls were enthralled and wanted to know more, but the old fish knew when to stop his story and leave the girls anxious for more.  This way the girls would come visit again and soon.

“See you girls later, I have things to see and ships to plunder. When you come again I will tell you of my days on earth and the big storms I’ve weathered before ending on the end of a string of friends headed to the dinner table.”  He flipped his tale twice and went back to his watery domain.

“Come on, Lil Bit, let’s go tell Moses what we saw.  Maybe he will tell us stories of what he saw when the Red Sea parted.”  Off they flew to find the most-high Moses who led his people out of Egypt and has many stories to tell.  If they begged for stories, he would tell them many.

Afternoons in Heaven can be fun and the girls knew this first hand.