I think it all happens to the best of us. It happened to me just now.
Today my son has an eye appointment. He NEEDS new glasses…DESPERATELY and his school did something new this year. The LIONS club came in with a pretty nifty machine and tok pictures of his eyes with his glasses on, from there they get a print out with his eye pictures and they can tell numerous things. like….
1. how bad his lazy eye has gotten
2. his astigmatism and the severity
3. and how much off his prescription is and what it now needs to be.
No reading charts. No covering eyes and for anybody with a little kid you know just how challenging this is and add into it the fact this particular little boy has special needs- YEAH it’s fun. Then they send home the print out so you can take it to your eye dr. Well this momma has been holing onto these papers for 3 months. I knew EXACTLY where they were, that is until this morning! I went right to the spot. an expandable file right inside my planning notebook…and they WERNT there! AHHHH!
Panic ensued, my brain went ballistic, what on earth could I have done with them? I looked every where. Nothing I went back to the notebook 3 more times. I prayed “Lord you know exactly where they are show me.” All the while trying to keep that same little boy on task, looking for sneakers (I accidentally threw one of those in the washer…Ooops-no worries though it was now in the dryer…DRE|IED!) after he left I methodically went through everything still muttering the above prayer, my spirit calmed and piece by piece I went through the papers on reserve for important things. and finally I came to the last little stack. The one that was in that expandable file. The one I had already looked through 4 times. and there, just where I left it, where I knew it was , were the papers., RIGHT WHERE I LEFT THEM to be safe.
I could have complained and lost my cool. I could have jumped to conclusions and accused any number of things on someone else but instead I turned to Jesus. It takes a lot of practice. I used to be that person of blaming others and truth be told that same person rears its old self every once in a while.
Why turn to Jesus in the little things? Why is it that important to practice this? Well 3 days ago I caught a glimpse of the answer. or at least 1 of the answers…..My hubby and oldest son went out to the garage and found our barn cat Helix had died sometime within the last 12 hours. Now if you remember back in March we lost our faithful dog Daffy for some unknown reason and it devastated our family so this was quite a blow especially to our daughter who had a very unique relationship with him. He would let her carry him around like a baby.
So after hubby told her that the cat had died I found her in her room with her Bible open. I talked to her about what she was doing She explained that her Bible had a section that had verses about emotions a person was feeling. She read them off and she got to sadness and she said “mommy I’m sad so I’m going to read these.” I was stunned as I left her room. She is almost 9, and it became very clear in that moment that certain things are caught more than taught. I can “preach” read your Bible or run to Jesus but at the end of the day if my kids only hear me saying that and not practicing it…its worthless. it made me think back to 6 months ago when I sat with my Bible open, tears flowing endlessly as we went through a major trauma . Even though they didn’t understand what was going on in its entirety what they did see (apparently) was mommy and daddy turning to Jesus. We have prayed for lost shoes, lost thumb drives, lost keys, lost cellphones, lost wallets (are you seeing a trend) we have prayed for people in the hospital for families who have lost loved ones in death. We’ve prayed for friends and family to grow deeper in their walk with Jesus or to get saved. And sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers the way we think they should be answered and then we help them to understand that God is STILL there, comforting us through that hard time. When we teach and example faith in Jesus to take care of the little things it becomes a natural response in the big things. So in that moment….my child knew who to turn to….and that made me :
1) very happy as a mom who is striving to teach her children these things
2) made me very aware of what my responses should be when Im struggling even with the little things in life
Living as an example to all I come in contact with…..but especially to those little eyes and ears who live in my house, for they see me in EVERY situation!
How about you? Have you caught your little darlings acting out their faith in such a way that you’ve lived it but not necessarily “PREACHED” on?
