Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Can I Hear a Collective "WOW"

So I as some of you may have been reading, I have a daughter named Moriah and she is the apple of my eye, loves fierce, lives passionately and gets a beady little look in her eye when I feel she is morphing into the "Ramona" character from the Beverly Cleary books.

Yesterday, I was visiting a friend whom I had not seen in awhile and she was taking me around her NEW house. Let me emphasis NEW- not old, not broken into, not torn up and damaged but new. Anyways, I was sitting on the couch and Moriah was jumping so I told her to stop. She stopped for a moment, did it again, again told her to stop as she did she jumped over me knocking my coffee over my friend's baby's tummy time mat and all over her glass end table ( haha, will get back to those). We cleaned up the mess, not a whole lot of damage done except extreme annoyance on my part. However, Moriah sat next to me or wandered off aimlessly in the backyard and seemed to be occupied.

Later, as our visit was winding down and we were getting in a few last chats before saying adieu, we situated ourselves in the front room which was a LONG way from the family room. As we sat chatting, chatting, chatting we heard a sickening crash. I rushed quickly down the hall and stopped as I see a once put together, glass top end table shattered in hundreds of pieces, some being quite large, others being quite minuscule and Moriah standing on the couch looking at me with a very unsure expression to her. After seeing that not one child was harmed by the dangerous glass and relief quickly dissipating I was so upset.

Why is it that toddlers seem to go in stages of listening, not listening, listening, not listening? To think of how badly she could have gotten hurt simply because of her disobedience frustrates me to no end. I know her intention was not to break the table but I just can't wrap my head around why she wouldn't sit with her bottom on the couch, play or watch the movie. I ask God every day for a love like His for Moriah and patience and understanding on how to raise her to be a godly woman. She is so amazing but so frustrating at times. I am so thankful, to God, for protecting her. I get shivers thinking of her falling through that empty square with the jagged glass daggers all around. What life lesson can I take from this....well, there are a couple:

1. Just because you are not going to break something, doesn't mean your child won't.
2. My children and glass end tables, or glass anything do not mesh well
3. Bring a check book , from now on, to others homes so I can just pay for the broken object right then and there.
4. Pray for God's continual protection over my children because , wow, I'm not always in the same room
5. Grace, grace, grace. We all need more of it, given to us and given out by us.
6. See our children as God does, who they will be, not who they aren't.

And, yes, everyone was out of the car except Moriah, at the store, and she looked at me and locked herself in. Again. Patience, just have patience.

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