17 July 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3167: shrink me!
Mrs. Thalia Ludlow remembered her mother telling her when she had her first daughter, Tallie: “This is the thing, Thalia: I remember when you were Tallie's age, and I can't account for the time. It gets by fast, the years with your children. We all have to blink and sleep, but otherwise, pay close attention, or you will miss it all.”
Indeed. By the time then-Thalia Green was 40, Tallie and her brother Samuel Jr. were in college and their father, Samuel Green Sr., was in Heaven. Mrs. Thalia Green was a young widow and empty nester, just that quick. But she had paid attention, and her life was full of wonderful memories of her first family. Her second was right around the corner, for she was going to check out a new restaurant, and on that day, Capt. R.E. Ludlow would also walk around the corner from the Army base he was stationed at. Neither of them intended to remarry … but instantly knew they would, at the first sight of the other.
16 years later, in Ludlow Family 2.0, Mrs. Thalia Ludlow was tired but happy, being run around and around by the seven grandchildren and one cousin of the same age that she and the captain had adopted as their very own. Mrs. Ludlow continued to pay attention, because there were so many moments that would otherwise get away …
“So, basically, Rob,” ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow was saying to his baby brother, five-year-old Lil' Robert, as they came onto the back porch, “when John the Baptist was saying 'He must increase, but I must decrease,' it is like he was saying, 'Jesus has gotta get bigger, and I gotta get smaller.'”
“OK, but, weren't they grown already?” Lil' Robert said.
“Yes, but it's not about the size,” Andrew said. “You know how you are three-feet-six, and Papa is six-feet-three, and your numbers are reversed but it doesn't matter because you have a real tall soul?”
“Yeah, absolutely!” Lil' Robert said with a huge grin.
“Well, people's importance has a invisible height like that too,” Andrew said.
“Oh,” Lil' Robert said. “You know, Andy, there's a lot more going on than people know.”
“There is,” Andrew said, “and God can handle way more than we can of it, so, if we make room for how big He is, we get way more help.”
Lil' Robert considered this.
“I'm kinda lost but maybe not,” he said, “because John didn't die for our sins, huh?”
“Right,” Andrew said. “The Lord Jesus did that. John the Baptist had his time to point to the Savior, and then he got out of the way and let the Savior do His saving thing.”
Lil' Robert considered this.
“I don't get it but I kinda do,” he said. “There's a lot of stuff I wanna do for you and Ellie and Glennie and George and Eddie and Mandie and Grayson and me too, and also Papa, and Grandma. But if God wants to do it instead, I'm cool – shrink me!”
“And that's the idea, Rob, right there,” Andrew said. “We just gotta make room for God to get big in our lives, and He handles the stuff we can't.”
“I like this plan, Andy,” Lil' Robert said, “because it leaves me more time to eat snacks!”
“Hadn't thought about that,” Andrew said, “but yeah, that's true, too.”
“Well, they had to come back to being little boys instead of mini-theologians at some point,” Mrs. Ludlow said at that point in telling the story to Capt. R.E. Ludlow.
Capt. R.E. Ludlow was a 33-year military veteran and classic Virginian gentleman, blue-blooded, strait-laced, who nonetheless broke out laughing and laughed until he cried … and thus completed another precious family memory for his wife.