Her Children Rise Up and Call Her Blessed

I had a rough night last night. Wednesday nights are often crazy with the stress of getting supper on the table and cleaned up before heading out to teach at our local kids club. It's kind of like the pre-church chaos where everything in the world seems to be working against you.

Last night was particularly trying. I have been working really hard to try to create a peaceful environment around here, and seem to be fighting a losing battle. I realize that I can't do this on my own. I had talked to the girls numerous times and told them I needed them to start taking care of their own messes. Earlier yesterday I had warned them that if they didn't take care of their messes before club, I wouldn't be taking them. Lo and behold, time to leave arrived and chaos still dominated.

I was not happy about having to enforce the consequence, but I knew I had to. I told them to go and talk to their father and ask him what he thought should be done, and he said it was between them and me, so I had to decide. I put my foot down, in the midst of many tears, and left with a few tears of my own but not without having promised them consolation prizes if they showed me they could do a great job and we could make things right.

Well... let's just say we had a conflict in the parenting department and when Daddy heard girls wailing upstairs and saw me driving away he called me up and wanted me to come back and get them. Let's just say that the timing was bad, the communication was poor and the phone call ended very badly ie "click".

When I got home the manure hit the oscillating device in every sense of the word and about every single person in the house had an emotional breakdown. Don't you just hate it when that happens? I won't go into all the gory details, but the beautiful part of the story is this. When I was crying my eyes out, tired and spent and feeling completely misunderstood and unsupported, my little girl snuck off with her bible to look for a very special passage, copied it out on notepaper with hearts and xoxo's, and came to kiss me and tuck it into my hand.

I unfolded the paper and read;

"May the Lord bless you and take good care of you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look on you with favor and give you PEACE." Numbers 6:24-26

My daughter blessed me in the true sense of the word. In the midst of all that hurt and frustration, I received a verbal blessing, and it washed over me and strengthened me with grace and peace. I think I can learn alot from her.