Caleb doesn’t eat breakfast until
he gets to daycare, but often he wakes up ravenously hungry. I wouldn’t ask myself to wait an hour and a
half to eat, and I won’t ask that of my kiddo either, so he usually gets a
banana or a smoothie on the way out the door.
Often he receives his snack before we head out the door and finishes it
in the car on the way to daycare because our mornings just…are. That leads to a moment of stress when I am
fastening him into the five-point harness and his arm simply won’t fit through
with a whole banana firmly in his grip. “Let
me have the banana for a minute, honey.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It is MY banana! You. Can’t. Have. My. Banana!” Caleb can scream like no other; I should send
an apology note to the neighbors. I
would not want to wake up to that.
“Honey,
I’m not taking your banana. I’m holding
it so that I can buckle you safely into your seat, so that you can relax and
enjoy it while we drive to school.” And
literally, I pry it out of his grubby hands for thirty seconds, snap the straps
into place, and hand it back to my fuming child. Thirty seconds in exchange for a safe
drive. It is nothing, really. Except to him, it was a whole lot.
I’ve
mentioned before how much I learn about my heavenly Father as I parent these
children of mine. This is no
exception. In his infinite wisdom, He
can certainly ask me to hand something over, either for a minute or a lifetime,
because it is good for me. And when he
does, my flesh will scream and holler because it, like Caleb’s tummy, is
hungry, desperate. Unless I cling to God’s
promises that He is good, I will think that He isn’t. And even though His reasons are good, that
doesn’t eliminate the hunger.
I feel
myself in Caleb’s spot now: my heart hungers to be home with my kids. My heart worries constantly about our
finances. My body and spirit are oh, so
tired. These are real things; God does
not ask us to deny our truth, and that is mine.
I don’t know or understand what he’s doing…why He seems so slow. I don’t understand why provision hasn’t
come. Why my tires should have been
replaced three months ago and I still can’t afford it. Why we just can’t get a break. I don’t understand, but He is holding all of
this in His hands and I have to trust that He’ll hand it back when He is
ready. When the time is right.
And so
these are my prayers for today: that God
will teach my children to have a heart for others, that He will protect their
innocence and protect their health, that He will show himself to me in ways
that I cannot deny or write off to coincidence, that He will use me and give me
the words He wants spoken. I pray that
He sees me as faithful, and that it delights Him.
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