Kites and Strings

We are blessed to live where we can step out our back door most afternoons and fly kites. My kids love to fly kites; my husband loves to fly kites; and I love to fly kites. It is amazing to me that I can stand there, hold the kite string, and the kite just takes off into the sky.

I have memories of going to the local park with my younger sister to fly kites. We lived in a valley and the surrounding mountains kept any kind of steady wind away. Occasionally, we’d have a gusty day, but the gusts were short and not really enough to keep any type of kites in the air. So, we’d have to generate our own wind. We would run up and down the soccer fields to keep the kites aloft.   We didn’t fly the kites for very long. We got too tired and ran out of wind generating ability. So, to just be able to stand there and have the kite fly into the sky amazes me every time it happens.

Yesterday was a perfect kite flying day. The wind was steady; the day was comfortable – absolutely perfect. I got to fly our airplane shaped kite, while my dear husband held and looked after the baby. We had the kites up as far as their string would let them go. A few times the string slipped out of someone’s hand, and the kite came drifting back to earth. After flying kites for a while, we came inside, had dinner, and had a family lesson about God’s commandments.

We talked about how God’s commandments are His rules to keep His children safe. We named seven of the commandments we were grateful for. Then we talked about how God’s commandments are a lot like a kite string. The kite string keeps the kite in the air. Without the constant pulling from the string, the kite loses its ability to fly. As long as the string is taut, the kit will continue to fly. The commandments are the same way. As long as we observe to keep God’s commandments we will be free from behaviors and habits that are harmful. If we loosen our observance of these commandments, then we start to fall into habits and behaviors that will hurt us and ultimately keep us from our goal to follow God.

We finished the lesson today by making kites that display some of the commandments we said we were grateful for. The project took a little while to do, mostly because I was to only one who could tie the kite strings. All it took was construction paper cut in the shape of a kite, some baby yarn for the string, tissue paper cut into strips, and things to decorate the kites with. I let the kids color and sticker their kites, then pick which of the commandments they wanted on their kite. After that, I strung the string through the kites and helped the kids tie the tissue paper onto the kites. We all had a good time working on it together and enjoyed the afternoon “flying kites”.

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