My daughter braved up and said she wanted her ears pierced Saturday evening. We were school shopping and passed a Clare's store, and she said out of the blue with no prompting or suggestion from us (of course, we've always told her it didn't matter if she never did it but if she wanted to we would), "Okay, " then drew a deep breath, "there's a Clare's. I'm ready to get my ears pierced. Let's go get something to drink first."
So, we did. She marched right up there, picked out her little earrings, sat down on the stool (it helped that a 9 year old girl in front of her was also getting hers done and didn't flinch). As the two ladies doing the piercing were around her, I got a shot on my phone camera of her little face in a last moment of "Oh, what have I done?"
She didn't even flinch, though, and it was over before she knew it. She started first grade this morning. So big, so fast.
I'm going to try and post the ear piercing photo.
Human government bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven. (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, 72).
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