When God Gives Us More

After well over a year of waiting and wiggling and hoping, Eli pulled out his first tooth yesterday. It was a dramatic process that involved nearly fainting and nearly throwing up…from fear. It took far longer than it should have, as evidenced by the fact that I can already see the adult tooth poking through the newly exposed skin. Like everything with Eli, it was perhaps a little more over the top than it needed to be, bless his heart.

This post could totally skew to the importance – and difficulty – of waiting, because that’s what Eli has been doing since his peers starting losing teeth in preschool. But what happened after the tooth was lost spoke so much more to my soul.

We aren’t fuddy duddies about fictional childhood characters, and the Tooth Fairy joined Santa and the Easter Bunny on the roster of creatures that sneak into the Simon family home during the night. Eli carefully crafted his letter (Dear Tooth Fairy, I just lost my first tooth. May I please have three pennies? Love, Eli), put the tooth and the letter in an envelope, and slid it under his froggy pillow. I repositioned it a little, explaining that we don’t want him to wake up when I – er, she – shows up to collect it. Hours later, I slipped a dollar bill AND three pennies into another envelope, tiptoed into his room, slid the old envelope through the rails on the top bunk, and replaced it with the money.

Then I tiptoed to my room and spent the night trying to sleep through what might, possibly, have been a mini-tornado. When Eli dragged into my room the next morning, I was exhausted and confused. I mean, Eli has a tendency to be Debby Downer, but he looked like he’d lost his best friend.

“She didn’t come.”

I wiped my eyes. She? Who didn’t come? Were we expecting company? What? Oh yes – the TOOTH FAIRY. What do you mean she didn’t come?

I hurried to his bedroom. Sure enough, there was nothing under his pillow. I climbed up into his bed and looked down behind his mattress. There was the envelope, resting where it had slipped during the night. Obviously, I need a better strategy for the Tooth Fairy, because we are only going to repeat this 20 times per kid. (Gah. That’s like $60 bucks. For teeth.)

I handed him the envelope and his face lit up. He tore into it. “There’s pennies in here!” he screamed. “Wait, there’s a dollar. Why is there a dollar? I asked for three pennies.” Three pennies fell out onto the bed, and he scooped them up, still staring dubiously at the dollar. “Why did she give me a dollar? I didn’t ask for one.”

At this point, I’ll confess to my desire to throttle him. Maybe that was part of his strategy. He has another loose tooth…maybe he thought I’d help him knock it out. But seriously, this kid got what he asked for and a whole extra dollar, and he complained about it!

Obviously we need to work on understanding the value of a dollar. And we really, really need to work on gratitude. As the parent who made a special trip to break a five-dollar bill, who stayed up late to make sure he was really asleep before I slipped the envelope under the pillow, who found joy in giving him not just what he wanted, but enough to get a really big piece of candy, I. WAS. PISSED.

So often, my kids teach me more than any theologian could. This is one of those times. Eli didn’t even know what to ask for. (Really. Can three pennies buy anything these days?) I gave him what he asked for AND something even better. And he didn’t even recognize it as a gift. In fact, he complained.

And then the Spirit nudged me. I’ve been really caught up lately in the difficulties I face in my marriage. They are real and not trivial things. But in that, I’ve forgotten to be grateful for the gifts God has given me – gifts I thought were impossible just two years ago. I’ve been given the chance to homeschool my kids. I’ve been given the chance to work part-time from home. I’ve been given a far larger house than I thought we could afford, and I grumble because the neighborhood isn’t everything I hoped for and there’s no fireplace. I make far more working from home than I ever thought possible, and I get to play with words for a living. I asked for the ability to eke out an existence, and God gave me abundance. How dare I complain?

The act of gratitude doesn’t erase the hard things in our lives, and it doesn’t pretend they aren’t there. It just shifts the focus to the good. To the blessings. And right now, I’m experiencing plenty of those.

So let me be the first to say that God has richly blessed me. Blessed us. He gave me more than I thought to ask for, more than I thought possible. That’s His nature. He’s a good, good Father who wants to see our joy and elation when we find the treasures he’s hidden under our pillows.

And I want to be the daughter who takes his gifts with unreserved delight.