Food for Thought: “A Message from a Mermaid”

While in the waiting room at a medical clinic, I read a true story by Margo Pfeiff in Reader’s Digest. It’s about a four-year-old girl named Desiree who was struggling to understand the death of her daddy. She wanted to send a message to him on his birthday, and her mother helped her buy the helium-filled balloon of her choice. It featured a picture of Disney’s Little Mermaid, the character in her favorite movie that she had watched with her dad. They attached a message to the string and set it free, watching as it rose toward heaven. The little girl hoped for a message back. Months later, close to little Desiree’s own birthday, a message came, postmarked in the city of Mermaid in Canada.

A man in Mermaid had found the balloon and after letting it sit in a closet for a while, he and his wife decided to send a letter to the address on the note with the balloon. The message they sent explained to Desiree that they thought her daddy had chosen them to respond. They also sent her a book with a different version of the Little Mermaid than the one portrayed in the movie. In that version, the Little Mermaid dies. Desiree immediately concluded that the Little Mermaid, like her daddy, had gone to heaven and that the little mermaid had teamed up with her daddy to get the message to her. The couple also made arrangements to meet Desiree and her mother, and they became good friends. They were a source of comfort for Desiree because she thought they had a special connection to her daddy.

We like to think that our loved ones who have died are watching over us and can help us. While there is some evidence in the Bible that it might be true, we have no way of knowing it for sure. What we do know is that God is watching over us, and that He can work in whatever way he chooses to reassure us that things will work out for the best, whether it is to reassure a little girl who is struggling to understand death, or to assure each of us that we are His beloved children. Also, because He loves us, He has provided for our salvation from eternal death through the sacrifice of his own Son Jesus on the cross.

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12