Soccer Dude stood outside the closed bathroom door – legs spread, eyes directly facing forward, light saber held battle ready. I was surprised, to say the least, when I rounded the corner and found him guarding the door.
Trying not to smile I asked my warrior, “hey, what’s up?”
“I am keeping sister safe from her fears of the dark. I can’t stand it when she is scared.” Matter of fact – just like that.
The story from Little Monkey. “I called and you were busy. You know I can’t go into a dark room. I had to really go. Brother helped me. He even checked the shower with his light saber for dark monsters and promised to stand near by so I wouldn’t be scared.”
There are times as a mom that I want to pull my hair out, bang my head against a wall, or sit down in the midst of our family craziness and have a good cry. Will they ever get it? Am I speaking Greek when I explain how important it is to be kind, loving and stick together as a family.
I pray hard (and often.) I come up with new charts, ideas and plans on how to best instruct the hearts of my three treasures. Really. I try not to bind my success as a person around my children, but to be frank I really want them to turn out to be people who love Jesus and show it through their actions. I have given up hopes of teaching them not to pick their noses – but I still strive to instill compassion, love and joy. In the middle of crazy moments I have even been known to raise my voice and shout, “PEACE! LOVE!! AND JOY!” (I kinda wish I was making that up just to make this a better blog post and story. I’m not.) I don’t know. Shouting these words at arguing children seems at times the only thing I know to do before I sit down and weep.
Then I find a warrior outside the bathroom door.
Tonight I am shedding different tears. I am the one who has joy, love, peace…..and hope. They are getting it! I need to hold on to these moments and remember them when teaching my children seems like a job to difficult for me.
