When I was a little girl, I went to my first circus. There, before my awestruck eyes, were three rings in full action—performing animals in one, and acrobats leaping and flying through the air in another. What interested me most, though, was taking place in the third ring. A girl and a boy were flinging brightly colored missiles, which, after they had crossed the ring, turned and returned to the very hands that had flung them. No matter which direction they were thrown, the things curved and came back swiftly to the young performers, who would catch and fling them again.
I watched in amazement. “They are boomerangs,” someone beside me said. It was the first time I had heard the word, and I tucked it away in my young mind.
I’ve heard the word many times since then, of course, and I’ve also seen the principle behind it play out in life. In fact, life itself is a boomerang. God’s Word says, “A man reaps what he sows” 1. Every word or action we fling out comes back some day. Whether good or bad, it will return to us, and it often gains momentum as it does.
One morning I visited two women in the same hospital. One room was filled with flowers and cards and all sorts of gifts from friends and acquaintances, thoughtful gestures of love, concern, and sympathy. That was a reflection of her life, for she had sown love and thoughtfulness throughout the years, and now it was all coming back to her in her hour of need.
In a room down the hall, another woman lay alone. Still as self-absorbed, suspicious, and critical as she had always been, she lay with her face turned to the wall—a wall as hard and cold and bare as the ones she had built around herself all her life.
What a difference there was in those two rooms! The boomerang had come back to both women, but in very different ways.
“If you give to others, you will be given a full amount in return. It will be packed down, shaken together, and spilling over into your lap. The way you treat others is the way you will be treated” 2. Anyone who lives unselfishly, caring for and lifting the burdens of others, easing their pain, and helping to supply their needs, will see that boomerang come back in the form of blessings some day!