A Grateful Heart

8:10am.  That’s what time our kids are supposed to be ready to walk out the door in the mornings: shoes and jacket on.     

8:18 Nathan is sitting on the bench by the door putting on his shoes.  Sophie, having just come from her room asks if her shoes that are getting too small will rub off her new toenail polish. 

 “Probably.”

 She asks if she can change.

“Quickly.”

“Mom!” She yells. “I can’t find any socks!”

Walking through the house, “If you would straighten out your drawer, you could find some.”  I look in the drawer. I immediately find a pair…

Back to the garage entry door, I go. Waiting. Nathan is still putting on his shoes. I can feel myself getting tense, my heart-rate rising. “Be patient” I tell myself.  Tilting my head back, I take a deep breath.  There I see it, a gentle reminder.  Above the door opening hangs a sign I put up shortly after we moved into our house nearly five years ago. “Just Another Day in Paradise”. I smile and feel the tension fade away.

Yes, this is the life I wanted. It is the life I still cherish. These are the kids for whom I prayed. These are the children who consume my thoughts and my heart.  The children who love Jesus, say yes ma'am and no ma'am. The children who give me hugs every day.  So healthy they have not missed a single day of school this year.  So smart and diligent that they are both on the honor roll. And I am grateful.

As I look at the sign, “another day in paradise”. I think of my husband who kisses me goodbye and tells me he loves me every morning before going to work. I’m grateful for him too. I prayed for a husband who would love and cherish me, who would work hard and be a family man. God answered that prayer too.

I think of this house in which the plaque hangs. The house I never thought would be ours. God, in his timing, delayed the sale of our old house in a declining neighborhood (robbed twice!) until the price of our current home met our budget.  The sale of old and purchase of new happened simultaneously. His timing was perfect. Now we live in a neighborhood where our kids have friends to play with and our neighbors are our friends and coworkers.  Again, an answered prayer and I am grateful.

It’s amazing how being grateful can change one’s perspective in an instant. How our hearts can beat to a different drum with the change of a thought. How our attitudes can improve when we are reminded or purposely remind ourselves how blessed we truly are.  I’m prompted of a quote my aunt used to say, “A complaining tongue reveals an ungrateful heart.”  May I always choose to be grateful.

Like a Child Crying "Mommy"

“Mommy,” my two-year-old Sophie turned to me, her big blue eyes, glassy and tired. With this one quiet, desperate plea, my heart broke.  Sophie had been admitted to the hospital with a kidney infection. After spending all day at the doctor’s office running tests to find out why her fever was so high, we were sent straight to the hospital. She had already endured a catheter and having blood drawn and she had missed her nap. 

At the hospital she suffered through two more catheters, having more blood drawn, an I.V., shaking uncontrollably and vomiting from a fever that was too high. The second day, they decided to do a test to find out why she had the infection. They assumed the valve in the urethra was not closing to prevent urine from traveling back up to her kidneys. So they had to fill her bladder completely full with water and dye via the catheter and perform x-rays after she expelled it. 

This was a traumatizing experience for her. She had already cried and screamed throughout her other procedures, but this was apparently the worst one, according to the nurses. One of them even suggested that I could wait outside as some parents did because they couldn’t handle the child’s crying. I probably looked dumbfounded to her because there was no way I was leaving my baby girl when she needed me most. Sophie screamed out, “MOMMY” while the procedure was taking place. I was right there gently comforting her and holding her hand. 

In fact, she had screamed out “Mommy” several times: during each cath insertion and during the x-rays. It was so hard to hear her pleading with me in desperation to do something to help her. She didn’t know that everything that was being done to her was for her own good. I stayed strong, not wanting her to see me upset. 

However, at a quiet moment in the day, after all the procedures were done, we were sitting on her hospital bed watching Dora the Explorer. She was leaning against me, her back to my stomach, when she turned to me looking into my eyes and said the aforementioned one word, “Mommy.” This time, she wasn’t screaming or crying. It was a small desperate plea that she had had enough. She turned back around and continued watching Dora. It was that moment that my heart could no longer be strong. The tears began to silently fall and I wished more than anything that I could take her place.

It’s easy to relate this back to our Heavenly Father. There are times when we are going through difficult situations, that we cry out his name wondering why He doesn’t do something. Like Sophie, we don’t understand, and we just want Him to make it stop. I can almost see Him looking at us lovingly and speaking gently to us, but our emotions and our mind are running rampant. We may not hear him speaking to us until we are quiet and still.  “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Anytime Sophie slept, she wanted to sleep on my chest. She was so traumatized by the whole thing that she would say, “Mommy hold me,” even though I already was. She simply could not get close enough to me. That is how we need to be when we are hurting. We need to draw close to God. It may seem like He isn’t there, but He is. Just like I wouldn’t leave Sophie during her procedure or any other time for that matter, He refuses to leave us. I love the way the Amplified Bible shows the intensity of Hebrews 13:5, “He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax my hold on you)! [Assuredly not!] 

Just like I wanted to take Sophie’s place, God wanted to take ours. He may not take our place during our circumstances, but He did send Jesus to take our place and die for our sin. “For He hath make Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 “And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 

God is our Heavenly Father; no matter what we are going through He loves us and is there with us. And if we are truly His, when all is said and done, because of His sacrifice, we are victorious, we are healed, we are whole.