It’s the late afternoon, it’s beeping for attention, yet my phone battery has reached the 12%, red warning light that means, “Don’t even think about trying to use an app right now.” But my Tamagotchi might DIE!!

Childhood seems to have a way of sneaking-up on you in the weirdest of ways sometimes. No, the above sentences aren’t a reflection of my tween self trying to tend to a computerized animal that swept the country, right up there with the Rubix Cube, Cabbage Patch Dolls, or Furby’s. Sadly, this is a very real thought from a very real adult who just recently discovered that the creators of Tamagotchi have come back with an app. Don’t believe me? Here is your proof:

But how did I get sucked into playing with this contraption once again? Well, it could be the fact that I never had one to play with in the first place. While other kids and tweens got their very own computerized “animal,” I was busy babysitting to try to get one of my own. But by the time I saved enough money, necessities came into play more then silly little things, and the fever for the Tamagotchi was gone.  Maybe it’s also the reality that I couldn’t believe they had created a smartphone application of the once popular pet-thing until I downloaded it for myself. And now I’m treating it like the dog the hubby and I don’t have (yet).

Any which way you see it, I got sucked-in! And even though this is something small from my child/teen years and it doesn’t hurt anything, it just goes to show that our childhoods can come back to smack us. Sometimes, it’s not the friendliest of things that hit us though. Those feelings, emotions, people that we feel did us wrong (or we even wronged), all of a sudden fall on our front door or show up on Facebook asking to be our “friend.” How do you deal with this? How do you see past the hurt?

When it comes to healing, we can’t push a button and “Restore our health” like you can with a digital pet. But our Emmanuel, our Father, is there to heal, to love, to get you through the mess of our past, whether created by ourselves or others. Those bullies who just wouldn’t leave you alone all the way to those personal struggle of loving yourself for yourself, God’s got the fix. So are you going to embrace it just as we so easily do to trinkets of our youth, or run away from the hands of help and hope?