It was not my finest day of parenting......
1) This weekend we decided we should go see Star Wars again in a very cool IMAX theater. So, I looked up the theater online and was sure tickets would still be available when we got there after church this morning. Guess what? It was sold-out! I had a very disgruntled crew on my hands for the drive home! I apologized; they forgave me; we all moved on.
2) I got so fed up with the chaos in our house (mostly, I got fed up with myself because I let things slide over the holiday break, but I tend not to keep my fed-up-ness to myself) that I declared a "we are going to pick up this house!" afternoon. (Yes, I did this almost as soon as we walked in the house from our disappointing not-seeing-Star Wars fiasco. Good timing, don't you think?!) The boys helped without grumbling and things were off to a good start. I told them to take the recycling outside, which they did.....also without grumbling. When they came back in, Michael said, "The big one is the recycling, right?" Uuummmm......No! Which led me into a rant about how could you think that and now you have to go back outside and fix what you did. To their credit, the boys put their boots back on and silently walked outside. When they returned, they were soaking wet. (Wait-- did I forget to
mention that it was a torrential downpour out there......which I had not
bothered to remember or listen for?) I apologized.....again.
Thankfully, our boys are extremely gracious and forgave me for both incidents.
Which made me stop and think about how often the Lord is also gracious and forgives me. Last week we heard a great sermon on the importance of prayer as a non-negotiable in our lives. I left church determined to participate in 517 -- 5 areas of prayer, with 1 other person, 7 days each week. My determination lasted until later that day. I allowed a whole bunch of other nonsense to get in the way of my "non-negotiable" and let it slide most of the week. I eventually did sort out my 5 areas of prayer, but I never spent quiet, uninterrupted time with the Lord regarding those areas and certainly not with another person. This morning at church, I found myself apologizing to God without any excuses. I knew I was the only one to blame for my lack of discipline in this area this week. Thankfully, He is always gracious and quick to forgive me, even though He knows I will probably mess this up again this week.
Lord, help me to be as gracious and forgiving to others as my boys and You are to me......even when I know the one apologizing will probably do the same thing again.
And, just in case you were wondering, I went online and bought tickets for Star Wars at the really cool IMAX theater for Chris to take the boys tomorrow afternoon.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
It just "happened"......
I was reading Ann Voskamp's Advent book to the boys for our Bible time in the mornings before Christmas. We read about Samuel's search for a King. And all of a sudden, I had an epiphany. Want to know what it was? (If you don't, just close your screen now.)
Samuel and Jesse both believed that the oldest and strongest and biggest of the sons would be the obvious choice for the King of Israel. We all know the story, though, right? It wasn't the oldest or any of the others. It was David who was the youngest and the smallest whom God was calling.
I looked at our son, Jonathan David, and just started crying. Which, of course, did not make any sense to my boys who do NOT understand my tears more than half of the time I shed them! You see, our son is small for his age. He always has been. We went through a period of time where they did all kinds of tests on him because he did not appear to be growing. But they never found a medical explanation. Well, other than the fact that neither his mom or dad are very tall people!
We thought we got his middle name, David, from my Dad. And my dad is a pretty great guy to be named after! But today I just realized that God had a bigger plan. He knew all along that Jonathan would be small and that he would need someone small like shepherd boy David who kills a giant and who becomes King to look up to, to aspire to. God knew that Jonathan would struggle with his size and he would need to be reminded in BIG ways that small doesn't mean insignificant. That small doesn't mean less important.
Jonathan has gone through periods of time where his size has really bothered him. Kids made fun of him and treated him differently because he looked younger than they expected him to be. He has grown to realize there are definite advantages to being small--you are easier for your uncles to throw around than your taller cousins, you are a smaller target for games like dodge ball, and you can do gymnastics a little easier than someone with more body to move around.
David and Goliath has been his favorite Bible story since he started learning Bible stories. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Have I really never noticed this before? No, I have. But for some reason it hit me in a fresh, real way this morning. And I had the opportunity to speak into his life how great he could become, no matter his size.
Samuel and Jesse both believed that the oldest and strongest and biggest of the sons would be the obvious choice for the King of Israel. We all know the story, though, right? It wasn't the oldest or any of the others. It was David who was the youngest and the smallest whom God was calling.
I looked at our son, Jonathan David, and just started crying. Which, of course, did not make any sense to my boys who do NOT understand my tears more than half of the time I shed them! You see, our son is small for his age. He always has been. We went through a period of time where they did all kinds of tests on him because he did not appear to be growing. But they never found a medical explanation. Well, other than the fact that neither his mom or dad are very tall people!
We thought we got his middle name, David, from my Dad. And my dad is a pretty great guy to be named after! But today I just realized that God had a bigger plan. He knew all along that Jonathan would be small and that he would need someone small like shepherd boy David who kills a giant and who becomes King to look up to, to aspire to. God knew that Jonathan would struggle with his size and he would need to be reminded in BIG ways that small doesn't mean insignificant. That small doesn't mean less important.
Jonathan has gone through periods of time where his size has really bothered him. Kids made fun of him and treated him differently because he looked younger than they expected him to be. He has grown to realize there are definite advantages to being small--you are easier for your uncles to throw around than your taller cousins, you are a smaller target for games like dodge ball, and you can do gymnastics a little easier than someone with more body to move around.
David and Goliath has been his favorite Bible story since he started learning Bible stories. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Have I really never noticed this before? No, I have. But for some reason it hit me in a fresh, real way this morning. And I had the opportunity to speak into his life how great he could become, no matter his size.
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