"Mother's Day" Gift

A few blogs back, and a few months back, I mentioned that Luke had gotten potty trained. That was not entirely true. He was pee trained, but not the other. It was a really sore subject for me. He has always had constipation issue's and if I happened to fail to give him his medicine, then it was a terrible ordeal. He would hold it and cry and sweat...oh, horrible to watch. Several times Neil and I had to pin him down and give him an a stool softener. Don't mean to gross you out but, I wanted to convey how hard it has been on all of us. Well, yesterday I got the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for.....Neil and I were debating about whether we really wanted to go to church. We were both tired and it seemed we were running behind from the time we got up. The thought that runs through my head every time we are thinking of skipping out, ran through again, "God blesses obedience". Part of being obedient is attending church for one short hour per week. We decided to go knowing that we would not only be blessed but, that the hardest part would be over soon.... that is simply getting there! Once there I am always glad we came. We did our normal routine of dropping the boys off at Sunday school and nursery. Jack didn't cry this week for long (that was nice I thought) and Luke went right into his class and immediately starting talking to Miss Donna (his teacher). Wow, this Sunday really is starting out well I thought, blessings already. Church was great as always, a wonderful lesson on the Proverbs 31 women. After the service we headed down to get the boys. As we approached Luke's class Miss Donna was waiting, she told us in a very nonchalant way, that Luke had pooped in the potty 3 times. "WHAT?" I said. Did I hear her right. You mean to tell me after struggling, begging, bribing this child to poop on the potty all it took was a Sunday school teacher to tell Luke that they did not have any diapers and that he would have to use the big potty if he had to go? Boy, did God bless my attendance this week I thought!!! We don't always get to see the blessings of our obedience immediately. But there are those wonderful occasions when he makes them clear as day!

Purpose

As you know I have the awesome privilege of being able to take care of three little people everyday. However, on many days it does not feel like a privilege. As my girlfriend Bri's says, on her hardest of days, I'm just "living the dream". I always thought as a stay at home mom you were supposed to feel like you really were "living the dream" (I laugh every time she says this and I am laughing as I write it now)! Sometimes it's hard to look at life and see purpose. I see that these kids need me to feed them, play with them, change their pants etc. But, sometimes I miss the mental challenges of working, of being praised for a job well done, of leaving work having felt like I accomplished something....a purpose. Don't get me wrong I am SO grateful I can be home however, that does not make my job an easy one. Anyway, the other day I was reading the kid's their books before nap. I had just picked up 4 bible story's at a garage sale a couple days earlier. We had read them before and the kid's seemed to really like them which made the dollar I spent on them well worth it. Ha. After we read the books they both started asking questions. Like...why didn't the lions eat Daniel, and why wasn't David afraid of Goliath? Good questions I thought and both had a simple answer...God was with them and he protected them. These great men believe that God would protect them. I told them that David and Daniel had God living in their hearts (yes, I know this is prior to Jesus' coming). I asked them if maybe they would like to ask Jesus to live in their hearts. Both said YES! I prayed, then they each asked Christ into their heart. As we sat there on the couch with our heads bowed, I could feel the tears start to come. It took everything I had not to let them start rolling. Then I thought about my purpose...could I have a greater "purpose"? I get the awesome privilege of day in and day out being ablet to further their relationship with Christ. I get to nurture their new decision. I get to help them understand all the awesome blessings that come from knowing Christ personally. Yes, I know Luke is young and he probably does not fully understand the magnitude of what he did however, I do believe that my "purpose" is now to help him understand. AMEN!