Be Faithful AND Thankful

As I was standing in front of my refrigerator this morning, hemming and hawing about what to eat, I was reminded of a memory from my childhood.

I was 8 years old and we had just moved.   My parents built a gorgeous, brand new house in Wisconsin.  It was a beautiful Cape cod, with amazing space to play, a swing set in the backyard, and a lake just a short bike ride away.  It was my mother’s dream house!

Being the Godly people they are, my parents followed God’s calling away from their dream home to  Michigan.  We had been unable to sell the dream house, so having to make that house payment meant sacrifices were made until we had the money to buy something more permanent.  

We’d been living in Michigan for a while and one day we opened the fridge to find a hot box full of warm food-YIKES! That night at dinner, my parents explained we had no money to fix the fridge, and we were going to have to pray that God would provide.  We didn't ask God to give us a new fridge, we prayed that He would PROVIDE for us.  We all went to bed wondering how our faith would manifest itself.

We woke up the next morning to snow on the ground and lots of it! My mother said THIS was God’s provision we'd prayed for.  As an 8 year old sitting at the breakfast table, I really thought mom was losing it.  How is snow God’s answer to our prayers?  She took out a cooler and made us follow her outside.  She took that cooler and filled it up with snow, put in the gallon of milk, placed the top on and marched us back inside. 

We all sat around the table and praised God for His provision and answer to our prayers! That winter we prayed for snow every day and for 3 months we always had enough snow to keep our food cold in that cooler on the deck.  It was one of the snowiest winters in Michigan's history!  By the time Spring came around, God had sold that dream house in Wisconsin and we were able to buy a  working fridge.

Today God reminded me to be thankful because He always sees our need and will always provide.  I am also abundantly thankful for my parent’s Godly instruction! My mother was so faithful that she saw God's answer to prayer even though it wasn't in the form we expected.  

So this Thanksgiving, don’t forget to be thankful for the little things and the ways, however unexpected, God provides for you and your family!

I've Got All the Pieces

 

This past weekend we went to the Lego Store.  They have anything and everything you could possibly think of in Lego form.  My husband loves Legos and my 4 year old, Natalie, wants to be a part of that b/c she is a Daddy’s girl to the core.  

We got in the car and Natalie pulled out the Lego Christmas Catalog they gave her.  She began flipping through and talking about how cool all the large castles, pretty cars, and neat spaceships were.  After about 15 minutes of perusing, she said, “Oh, you have to build it?!”  All I could do was laugh! Of course you have to build it, silly girl!

While thinking about that, God put a thought into my head.  Natalie’s realization that the Lego sets don’t come pre-built is the same realization I often need in my walk with Him. You see, I look at the box with the completed picture and of course that’s what I want for my life.  A want a full, intimate relationship with my Savior with Heavenly Glory beyond my imagination!

But then I open the box and find pieces….The Holy Spirit, The Bible, Worship, My Church Community, so on....Hmmm, this doesn’t look like the picture AT ALL! Why, b/c I have to build it.  I want the picture on the box and God has given me all the pieces, the instruction manual, and He's even there to guide me.  So what’s the problem? Well, in my life, it’s me! I look at the picture of completion longingly, but look at the pieces and steps with disdain.  I want that intimate relationship with my Savior and my full-on, Heavenly Glory right now.  I don’t want to have to study the word, pray, serve, and wait to get what God has for me.

I’m selfish, impatient, but mostly I'm just plain human.  I want things to be easy, but God did not call Christians to easy! Quite the opposite. He calls us to follow Him and actually guarantees that the path will be hard.  So I give my longing heart over to God, get on my knees, and know that putting those pieces together won’t always be easy, but I don’t have to do it alone! When I reach Him in Heavenly Glory I want my life to match His picture of completeness for me, then my joy really will be complete.

I challenge you to step back and ask God what pieces you are struggling with.  I am  asking him to help me stop and wait for His instructions.  I want to use all of the pieces He’s given me for the purpose He has!

Psalm 25:5

 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day.

Goofy Expectations...

As parents we have expectations of our children.  Some of these expectations are spoken and clearly communicated.  Like when you tell your child they must be respectful to their teacher.  Other expectations, however, are not as clearly communicated and can lead to unfair disappointment in your child’s actions or reactions to a situation. 

I had this experience a few weeks ago when we went to Disney World.  We scheduled a meal with the characters.  It was something I always wanted to do, so now that I’m the mommy who makes the plans, I get to do it! We chose a breakfast with the classic Disney Characters-Mickey, Donald, etc.

Goofy is my favorite! I’m one of those nerds that still has the Goofy hat, slippers, and clock I bought at Disney when I was 10.  We hadn’t been able to see Goofy in any of our character encounters thus far, but he was going to be at breakfast! In preparation for the upcoming meeting with my most favorite character, we watched all the movies we could find with Goofy, talked about how cool he is, and even talked about how exciting it will be to meet him. 

We get to the morning of the breakfast and I’m like a 3 year old on Christmas-totally ecstatic, all I could talk about was how we were finally going to meet Goofy today.  We are seated at our table and the characters start coming around one at a time.  Donald was first.  Both the girls jumped out of their seats for a photo, excitedly handed their autograph books to him, and were delighted to blow him kisses as he said goodbye. 

Next up: Goofy! (I was beside myself with joy that my kids would soon get to see why I think he's so awesome!) He comes to the table and Annie TOTALLY flipped out, but not in the amazingly ecstatic way I’d been prepping her.  She jumped into my arms and began screaming, “NOOOOO!!!” Now, she’s 2, I get it, he’s big.  BUT we’ve seen TONS of characters and this is the first time she’s reacted negatively.  I tried to gently pursuade her that Goofy was fine, but to no avail.  After taking a picture of Natalie and Goofy (the one above!), he was on his way.  Annie was immediately at ease again and spent the rest of the breakfast cheerfully greeting Mickey, Daisy, Minnie, AND Pluto (?!)

Like I said before, I know this is a normal reaction for a 2 year old, you just never know what you’re going to get with them sometimes.  So why was I so disappointed? B/c I made the parenting mistake of imposing an unspoken, selfish expectation on Annie's reaction.  She knew I was excited to meet Goofy, but had no idea that my positive experience was based on her reaction to this big, scary dude in a costume! If I was being honest, I hadn't really thought about it that way until that moment either!

As I began to ponder this, I realized how unfair it is to my children.  They are their own people. God created them to be unique and take in the world in their own way, not mine.  With little kids I think we too often forget that.  It's OK for them to dislike something-they are little people with real personalities that cue their preferences.  I’m not saying that we should never have expectations of our children.  What I am saying is as a parent, I need to be asking myself a few very important questions. 

The first: Is this expectation selfish? More specifically, Am I just expecting they act a certain way b/c I want to be fulfilled or satisfied in my own experience?

The second: Are my expectations clearly verbally communicated ahead of time? 20 minutes into the church service my 4 year old starts talking and I get upset/scold her, but I didn’t tell her beforehand that she would be expected to sit quietly until the service was done-that's an unfair scolding b/c I didn't effectively communicate that expectation with her!

The third: Is this expectation realistic for my kid to succeed at? I can expect my 2 year old to be able to sit through a 4 hour Bible Study and explain to her that she is to sit quietly the whole time, but at 2 years old, even if she really wanted to, she just isn’t old enough to pull that off, plain and simple! 

Clearly, my desire for Annie to love Goofy was just plain selfish.  That being said, I enjoyed our breakfast anyway! Annie keeps talking about how neat it was to meet Goofy, so apparently in her mind, he’s a pretty cool character….from a distance! 

This is a good lesson no matter how old your kids are.  From now on, I encourage you (I'm going to do it too!) to try to keep my expectations clear and fair so my kids can be who God created them to be as they encounter all that this world has to offer. 

Picture Perfect Picnic...Not Quite!

We were in the park enjoying a real “movie moment” type picnic.  The girls and I were sitting in our cute outfits on a cute little blanket looking at all the adorable birds flying by-this is the stuff that wins “Mommy of the Year Awards”, people! But, in true Kim fashion, our moment of glorious perfection was quickly dashed, but not by what you might think. 

For my regular readers, I know you’re thinking this moment MUST have been interrupted by someone’s horrible bodily fluid explosion.  Surprisingly, you’re wrong (just wait a few days, I’m sure there will be another “poop post” soon, it’s never too far off with toddlers, that’s for sure!) No, today’s culprit was a squirrel.  I know, sounds ridiculous, what could a sweet, little rodent possibly do to unravel this perfect moment? Well this was no ordinary squirrel, not ordinary at all!

This squirrel was larger than most, about the size of a small puppy.  In Florida, that’s not really too unusual. The weather is nice all year, so I assume that means they don’t have to store away for the Winter, meaning they have an entire extra season to hang out and eat bread from old people-not a bad gig, if you ask me. 

Anyway, so this “larger than normal” squirrel spots our picture perfect picnic and begins to bounce his fluffy, evil, little tail in our direction.  I love animals as much as the next girl, but don’t feed the wild ones. I remember learning in 2^nd grade Science that feeding wild animals messes up their natural ecosystem and I don’t want to be personally responsible for too many uneaten acorns in the world, so I will NOT feed the squirrel.  Please don’t nominate me for any environmental awards, I’m simply doing my part. 

The squirrel sees that I see him-we make full eye contact.  I believe my eyes are communicating, “No food here, Buddy”  He believes my eyes are communicating, “Come on over, I packed some for you too!”  Clearly, I need to work on my squirrel whispering skills.  Now Mr. Squirrel is in a full on sprint towards our picnic.  I stand up to scare him away, but to no avail.  My “lovey eyes” from earlier have apparently removed any possible fear of me he may have had-UGH!

Still, not a big deal, it’s just a squirrel.  Then my girls see him and totally freak out.  By freak out, I don’t mean they scream or stand up.  No, they full-on run in the other direction, as if they saw a bull charging the picnic.  They get about 15 feet away and begin crying and screaming.  Now, everyone in the park who was just admiring our amazingly serene picnic is staring at my kids wondering who those little weirdos belong to. 

At first I was angry, but they were right to be afraid of this squirrel-he got right up on the blanket, despite me actually physically swatting him away.  After I realized I was losing this battle, I walked over to the girls, and we all sat and watched as the squirrel ate the rest of our grapes, cookies, and cheese.  As we were sitting watching this little terror eat our lunch, a sweet older lady came over and said, “Oh, that’s Squeaks, He’s terrible-he steals from everyone AND he bites! Animal control keeps removing him, but he always finds his way back here!”  We were just latest victims of Squeaks the evil, biting, food-stealing squirrel.  

When he was done, we picked up our mess and were on our way.  We’ll try again another day, probably not at Squeaks’ park!  I guess that’s just how life works, you get a few rare moments of picture perfectness and the rest of life is figuring out what to do with the crazy stuff that happens all around you!

The Happiest Place on Earth?

We just got back from a long weekend at Disney World, Ah, The Happiest Place On Earth, filled with crowds of people, long lines for everything, and crying children around every corner.  I’m starting to understand why “Happiest Place on Earth” is self proclaimed by Disney-I didn’t see many parents this weekend waiting in line for 45 minutes to meet a the 18^th character of the day who looked like they were indeed in the happiest place on earth.  So, what’s a mom to do? Well, since we live close to Disney, we’ve spent a lot of time there over the past few months.  There is a “rule” I have that I use, no matter where I am, to govern when my kids are throwing a fit (just for the sake of throwing a fit) versus being genuinely tired b/c it’s been a long day!

The rule is simple-If we’re at the first stop of the day, whether it be the grocery store or the Dumbo ride, and we have a meltdown-that’s my kid being bratty.  If it’s the 5^th stop of the day, we’re getting close to naptime, but I just HAD to stop one last place and they flip out, that’s MY FAULT for not recognizing my kids’ limits. 

We were enjoying a lovely day at the most magical of Disney’s Parks, the Magic Kingdom.  We stopped in front of Cinderella’s castle to get that iconic picture.  My 4 year old decided she didn’t want to have her picture taken.  My 4 year old who dressed up like a princess EVERY DAY is standing in front of the most princessy place on the planet, refusing to smile, seriously?!

Now, at this point, this behavior is not b/c we’ve been the park all day, she’s tired, or we’ve pushed to do too much.  Nope, she’s just choosing to be a brat, so for this we threaten punishment. I know, we’re horrible people for punishing a child at Disney World, but I’d rather be a horrible person and a good parent, than a great person with kids turning into real brats even when we’re not at Disney. So we let her know that if she doesn’t look at the camera AND smile for the picture, we will not be going to see Jessie (from Toy Story who she was dressed up to meet).  After a sassy moment of thinking (she was trying to decide in her head if that was a threat we’d really enforce) she came to the conclusion that she should do what we wanted so she could get what she wanted. 

Fast forward 8 hours: Still in the park and waiting to meet Aladdin and Jasmin (we did A LOT of waiting to see our most favorite friends) and Annie, our 2 year old, just kinda lost it.  She was hanging on the ropes in the line, trying to swing like the monkey she is, and I told her to stop.  She then throws herself on the floor and begins to scream…Yup, Happiest Place on Earth.  I picked her up and just let her cry it out.  So why didn’t she get punished for throwing a fit? Well, it’s very simple: at that point it was me as the mommy pushing the limits.  We’d been in the park all day, she’d had an insufficient 30 minute, head-bobbing, half-nap in the stroller, and it was nearing dinner time.  So I recognized that it was me causing this fit, not her.   

Now, I know some of you might be thinking it’s never ok for a child to throw a fit.  That’s just plain not true.  It’s never fun or comfortable for me when my kids throw a fit, but sometimes it’s warranted.  I’m not psychologist or doctor, but I’ve noticed something as a mom:  Kids don’t have the social acumen to understand it’s not Ok to throw yourself on the ground when you are frustrated.  That’s what we as parents are supposed to teach them.

 It’s in our sin nature to be selfish, to demand what we want, and to do anything we can to get what we want.  It’s with training, both social and spiritual, that we learn how to act without crying and ending up on the floor. Let’s be honest, I was sick of being there at that moment too-I was annoyed that people in front of us had 1 person waiting in line and when it was their turn 10 more people all with separate autograph books and cameras just showed up and HAD to get their picture taken with Aladdin and Jasmin.  I too would have liked to throw myself on the floor and say “This isn’t fair! It’s MY turn” So I get it when my 2 year old who hasn’t learned how to control that reaction wants to throw a fit.

That being said, this is still a very teachable moment.  So I picked Annie up and explained that it was their turn.  When they were done, we could go give Jasmine a big hug and take a picture, but right now we had to be patient and wait.  She tearfully said, “Ok, mommy, I be patient”. 

Sometimes as moms we get so worried about what the people around us might think about how we parent, that we do whatever we can to stop the fit.  After all, it’s damaging to our egos! No one wants to be the mom with the annoying screaming kid.  It’s true, sometimes (more often than I would like) my kids are just throwing the typical bratty kid fit-and that needs to be met with a swift response and appropriate punishment.  But sometimes they are just trying to say, “Mommy, I’m tired, it’s been a long day, please give me a break!” they just don’t know how!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Disney World-it’s magic, wonder, AMAZING customer service.  But I also know that we have limits, so we take in the most magic we can possibly stand and leave while we’re still full of wonder and joy, instead of crying and frustration! It’s important thing to remember no matter where you’re heading with those little ones today!