Manna For Moms

Devotions for Moms Like You!

2010

Beautiful

Megan Breedlove 0Comment

When Ellie was born, she weighed just over six pounds. She was tiny and perfect. I thought she was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen.

I still think she’s beautiful. At seven years old, her hair’s a lot longer now, and she likes to wear it down. Her eyes are a clear blue. She has a porcelain complexion and a slender build. But though I think Ellie is beautiful, her physical attributes are not the primary reason I think so.

Even more beautiful to me than Ellie’s outward appearance is her heart. From very early on, I could see that Ellie had (and still has) a heart of gold, filled with a level of compassion and tenderness found in few people. When other toddlers cried, Ellie gently patted them and tried to make them feel better. When other children fell down, Ellie tried to help them up. If Ellie could tell I was having a bad day, she drew me a picture to bring a smile to my face. As she grew older, when she could tell someone was sick or just needed encouragement, she suggested that they lie in bed and let her take care of him or her. When other people hurt her, she forgave them and remained loyal.

I truly believe that Ellie is one of the most tender, beautiful souls God ever put on this earth. Not because she’s physically beautiful…but because she loves beautifully.

Ellie loves others the way God means for us to love. No, she’s not perfect. She sins, just like the rest of us, even when it comes to people. But when the chips are down, you want Ellie in your corner. And you’ll have her, because she wants to be there and help you through it.

As a matter of fact, she’s a lot like another Person I know. She looks like Him and acts like Him. It’s no wonder there’s a family resemblance, because He’s her Father. And just like the moon reflects the light of the sun, her spirit reflects the beauty of His. She loves, because He loves.

We’re often amazed when others love us well. We marvel at the depth of their love. But do we ever wonder at the immensity of God’s love for us? The most compassionate person we’ve known on earth demonstrates but a fraction of God’s compassion. The most tenderhearted is only a dim reflection of the Son. The most loving person on earth gives us a mere glimpse of the amazing, overflowing reality of God’s love.

Yet we don’t often stop to contemplate the beauty of Someone Who’s the very fullness of beauty. We know God has all these great qualities, but we don’t spend much time contemplating His beauty. Why not? Think how much pleasure you and I receive from observing and adoring our beautiful, wonderful children. How much more delight would there be in adoring our beautiful, wonderful God?

So will you try something with me this week? The next time we find ourselves thinking about how amazing our child is, or how beautiful and compassionate, let’s let that be a reminder to us to think about God’s infinitely greater beauty. And then, let’s not forget to tell Him how beautiful He is. He longs to hear our response.

Psalm 27:4—One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.

It’s A Girl!

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When I became pregnant with my first child, I couldn’t wait for THE ultrasound—the one that would tell me if my baby was a boy or a girl. It seemed like forever before I lay on the exam table, my belly exposed, and the technician squirted some gel on it (which they must have been keeping in the refrigerator, because it was cold). She began spreading the gel around with the ultrasound sensor, taking various pictures and measurements as she first made sure my baby was healthy and growing normally.

Then, she paused. “Okay,” she said, “now let’s see if we can find out whether this baby is a boy or a girl.” Please, God, I prayed. Show us.

But Baby kept sticking a foot in the way. Finally, the tech said she thought she knew, but she wanted to get a second opinion from another tech because she hadn’t been able to get an entirely clear view. The second tech agreed with her. “Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?” the first tech asked.

“Oh, yes,” we answered.

“It’s a girl,” she said. We were thrilled.

Over the course of the next five months, I made preparations for the arrival of our precious new daughter. I decorated the nursery in beautiful pastel butterflies and flowers. I stored up tiny pink clothes in her dresser and closet. I bought her toys.

But the anticipation of Ellie’s arrival was nothing compared to what I felt upon seeing her for the first time. “It’s a girl!” the doctor announced, and I cried with happiness. When I held her, all neatly swaddled, and looked into her tiny, perfect face, my joy grew even deeper. I could hardly believe such a beautiful, complete little person was mine.

My husband and I were beyond proud. We called everyone we knew so they could celebrate with us. We wanted the world to know about our beloved daughter, Ellie. It’s a girl!

You know the same joy if you were blessed with a beautiful experience for the arrival of your first child (whether by birth or adoption). You know how it feels to rejoice at God’s marvelous gift to you, far beyond what you ever thought you were capable of. You’ve probably thought, as I have, about how the angels in heaven, and God Himself, rejoiced with you when your baby was born.

But have you ever realized that God rejoiced the same way when you were born?

It’s easy to imagine all heaven rejoicing over the birth of our children. It’s harder to imagine that same level of celebration when we were born. But it’s true. The Bible clearly and emphatically states that God rejoices over us with singing. When did that begin?

When you and I took our first breath, heaven rejoiced. When we cried our first cry, the morning stars sang together. When our mother held us for the first time, the angels shouted for joy. It’s a girl!

And God Himself took us in His arms and whirled around with us, laughing and singing with joy. I have a daughter!

What’s absolutely, incredibly amazing is that He still feels the same way about us today. Yes, He knows we’ve sinned, and will sin again in the future. But His delight in us isn’t based upon our actions, but upon the fact that He created us. We are magnificent examples of His handiwork, and that will never change. He may be less than pleased with some of our actions, but He delights in us.

And just as we wanted everyone around us to rejoice with us in the arrival of our child, God wants everyone around us to rejoice in the fact that we are here. We are far more precious to Him even than our children are to us. When we feel pleasure in our children, or delight, what we feel is only a shadow of what God feels not only for them, but for us.

The next time you find yourself delighting in your child, remember that God delights even more in you. The next time you say, marveling, “That’s my child!” remember that God is even more proud of you. She’s mine, He says, pointing you out to His Son and Spirit and all the angels. That’s my girl!

His words are the echoes of what He said when you were born. When the time came for your arrival, He was the ultimate proud Father waiting to announce you to the world. He couldn’t wait for you to be born so you could begin your life under His watchful care, and one day, grow to love Him. And when you left your mother’s body and entered this life, He rejoiced with all the joy Almighty God is capable of—and maybe even with tears of happiness in His eyes.

Look! He shouted joyfully. It’s a girl!

Job 38:4-7—”Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

Zephaniah 3:17—He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Daddy, I Can’t See!

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It seems that Jessica’s personality develops a little more every day. At almost two-and-a-half, she’s delightful, funny, and creative. She often thinks up new things to do and new games to play that I never would have thought of, partly because I’m…well…a lot older than two. She’s also gotten to the stage where she gets bored sitting in her car seat for very long. Combine these two factors, and you get some interesting games.

For example, the other day, my husband was taking the kids somewhere in the minivan so I could work on my contracted book. The way he describes it, it was a run-of-the-mill trip until Jessica cried out, “Daddy, I can’t see! I can’t see!”

He said her voice didn’t seem panicked, but he immediately glanced back at her anyway. And when he did, the cause of her “blindness” became obvious. She was covering her eyes with her hands.

“Silly girl,” he responded, and she grinned and uncovered her eyes.

Apparently, she loves this game, because she played it several more times during that trip and has played it many times since. She loves “fooling” us into thinking there’s a problem when there really isn’t.

Because she’s only two, the game is cute. But it isn’t so cute in the adult version, which we sometimes play.

We may not cover our eyes with our hands and pretend we’re blind. But, like Jessica, we sometimes cause our own problems and then complain about them. Instead of recognizing the part we’ve played in our circumstances and doing what we can to rectify it, we wait for God—or at least another human being—to rescue us.

Sometimes, it’s not a matter of creating our own mess, but of sustaining it beyond the point where it would have resolved naturally. When bad things happen to us, many of us feel more comfortable with continuing to receive sympathy than with moving on. But staying stuck isn’t going to bring us the emotional fulfillment we need.

Granted, there are situations in life that are hard—really hard—to move on from. There are times when needing long-term support is absolutely legitimate. But even during those times, it’s to our benefit not only to receive others’ support, but also to do all we can to help ourselves along the road to healing—even if all we can do is weep before the Lord with grief too deep for words.

Life can be hard. We’ve all suffered. But our suffering will be much less if we don’t cause it ourselves, and don’t prolong it any longer than necessary. When we’re in pain, it’s hard to face the possibility that maybe, we’re partly at fault. Not always, not even usually, but sometimes. And if we examine ourselves and find that there is something more we can do to help lessen our pain than what we’re doing, let’s do it. God will meet us there, and He’ll multiply our efforts toward healing.

Exodus 14:13-16—Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”

Shortcut

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It’s amazing how much you can learn by playing Chutes and Ladders with a preschooler.

Presumably, you can already recognize your numbers, and you probably know how to count, too. So there’s not much for you to learn there, even though it’s what your preschooler’s supposed to be learning. But there are plenty of other things you can learn, which you may never have thought of.

For example, did you know that you can learn patience? Lots and lots of patience, in fact. The way the game works, you spin the spinner and move your little person forward the appropriate number of spaces. You start out on the bottom row, going from left to right. When you get to the end, you go up one row and start moving back toward the left. Each square is numbered so you can remember which direction you’re supposed to be going. Your kids will probably get the idea that they’re supposed to move from one side of the board to the other. But they’ll forget which direction they were going, and if they don’t know their numbers, or if they forget to look at the numbers, they’ll take off in the wrong direction about half the time. You’ll have ample opportunities to say patiently, “No, this way, sweetheart.”

You can even learn about shortcuts and downfalls. See, if your move lands you on a square at the bottom of a ladder, you get to climb all the way to the top, bypassing the lower-numbered squares on the way. On the other hand, if you land at the top of a chute, you have to slide all the way down to a lower-numbered square—sometimes much lower. If you’re so inclined, you can teach your kids about the shortcuts and downfalls of life, and how sometimes you can climb way, way up or slide even farther down.

I’ve played this game a million times before, sometimes playing seven hundred games in a single day. But until the other day, I never thought about one particular aspect of the game.

When my kids were even younger, we didn’t always enforce the rules all that strictly. As long as they were playing by the general idea of advancing toward the last square, we figured that was good enough. Sometimes, we even let them take any path on the board they wanted, or take an extra turn. But recently, we’ve started to require that they play by the rules. So when Lindsey prematurely paused her token at the bottom of a ladder that would have led immediately to the end, I said, “Lindsey, you have to go two more squares.”

She obeyed willingly, finishing out the number she’d spun. But I knew she’d been tempted to take the unauthorized shortcut. And I realized that we as moms often face the same temptation.

I’m not talking about the temptation to hastily end a game that’s gotten too long or too boring. I’m talking about life, where it’s all too easy to use illegitimate shortcuts or unauthorized means to get to where or what we want.

Our kids are hungry and fussing, and we need a few moments’ peace to get our grocery shopping done, so we let them eat a grape or two from the produce aisle.

We really don’t feel like going to work on a particularly beautiful day, so we call in sick and then head for the lake instead of the office.

Or we resent the fact that our friends all have nicer homes than we do, so we buy an expensive home we can’t really afford.

Most of us hate to wait. We want what we want, and we want it now. As in, right now, not later, not some other day or month or year. Usually, we feel like we deserve what we want (as if it were possible to “deserve” any of God’s blessings). We feel entitled to it. And we resent having to wait. So if God doesn’t come through with what we desire, we go get it ourselves.

I can’t think of a better way to wreck our lives and end up with a bunch of what’s not good for us and what we don’t even really want than to take illicit shortcuts to get it. You see, if God requires that we wait, or that we not have a particular item at all, He has a reason. Making an end run around His reason and grabbing the goal for ourselves isn’t going to bring what we hoped it would. Oh, it may bring the object we wanted, but it isn’t going to bring the spiritual blessing we would have had by waiting, or by not obtaining the object at all.

Which is more important? The material blessing or the spiritual? We claim that the spiritual blessing is more important, that obedience to God is our highest value. But sometimes, we show by our actions that other things are more important.

What a witness to a watching world that would be if we showed them that we don’t have to have certain things or circumstances in life in order to be happy—that we’re fully content with God Himself being our portion, and consider ourselves abundantly blessed to enjoy what He’s given us, without having to try to grasp more.

We’d not only bless the world by showing them how satisfying our God can be; we’d also bless God’s heart by acknowledging that He’s enough for us. After all, what else do we really need?

Psalm 73:25-26 – Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

And…They’re Off!

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There’s something about getting to go somewhere that causes kids to turn into sprinters rivaling Olympic champion Usain Bolt. At least, that’s the way it is at our house. When we’re about to go somewhere the kids really want to go, they go potty, put their shoes on, then stand in a clump at the door, jockeying for position. I’ve finally gotten them to stop using their hands to push siblings out of the way, so now they just stand there, four kids squashed together like sardines into two feet squared of linoleum, anxiously awaiting the opening of the door.

“All right, you can go,” I call out, and…they’re off! The closest one pulls the door open, at the same time doing his or her best to block the others from squeezing past and being the first one out to the porch. But when the screen door swings open, then the tide is free. They all rush outside, trying to be first to the steps. They don’t jostle each other on the steps, probably because they remember how mad Mommy gets when they do, saying something about “dangerous”. Then they hit the ground and run to the van.

Actually, it’s not always this bad. For the most part, they’ve now been taught to move calmly and respectfully instead of making it their goal to outrun their siblings. But even though they might not push and shove, there are still times when they burst out the front door inappropriately. Let me explain.

The kids know that there is a very important rule at our house: no going outside without permission. Not even as far as the porch. Ever. I made that rule for safety, and I strictly enforce it. Usually, the kids obey. But recently, I was getting ready to take them somewhere, and I arrived in the living room to find the door standing wide open and only two children still in the house. “Where are Kenny and Jessica?” I asked Ellie.

“They went outside,” she said.

I strode to the screen door and opened it. “Kenny, are you out here?” I called.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“You know the rule about not going outside without permission,” I said firmly.

“Yes, ma’am. But I thought we were leaving.”

I believed him. Kenny probably thought we were so close to leaving that I wouldn’t mind if he went outside. But he was wrong.

Likewise, we adults often get the idea that we can go whenever we’re ready. We know God’s taking us somewhere, so we just get going without even consulting Him to see if it’s time yet. Just as Kenny had confidence in his ability to be outside without supervision, so we have the self-assurance that we can cope with whatever comes up. But sometimes, we’re going to be wrong.

Sometimes, our rushing ahead means we’ll encounter difficulties that can come close to destroying us. Sometimes, the difficulties are ones we can handle, but which we would never have had to deal with at all if we had done things in God’s timing.

What it comes down to is this: just as I knew better than Kenny when it was time to go, so God knows far better than we do when it’s time to move, and when we should stay put. We can’t possibly know as much as He knows. We’re fools if we expose ourselves to potential danger because we didn’t check with Him first.

Let’s let God tell us when it’s time to open the door. I know it can be frustrating to wait when we’re ready to take action. I get that way too, sometimes. I like to make things happen. I don’t like to wait. But I guarantee that following God’s timing is always the best way to do things. It may sometimes be slower, but it’s always better. And ultimately, that’s what we really want, isn’t it?

Job 12:13—To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.

Zzzzzzzz…

Megan Breedlove 0Comment

Originally published on June 14, 2010.

No one ever told me that the biggest change in my life after I had a baby would be in the quality and quantity of my sleep. Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite the biggest change, but if not, it at least rates a close second.

Post-baby sleep is never quite the same as pre-baby sleep for a number of reasons. First, it’s often interrupted by the aforementioned baby. When she’s little, she wakes up during the night to be fed. When she grows a little older, she wakes up during the night to be entertained. When she moves to a toddler bed or big-kid bed, she doesn’t have to resort to crying and waiting for you to come to her. Instead, she comes to you, for any and every reason—another drink, another story, another nightmare—including the old stand-by, that she just plain needs mama.

You don’t get to go to bed on time anymore, either, because you have to stay up late doing all the things you didn’t have time to do while your child was awake. Nor do you get to sleep in ever again, because many kids don’t understand that just because the sun’s up doesn’t mean they have to be up.

Then there are the times you can’t get to sleep because you’re lying there tossing and turning over some issue you’re having to help your child get through. Or you wake up in the middle of the night, and your brain clicks on, trying to resolve the problem.

Most moms I know seem to be walking around with a sleep debt of several years’ worth, at least. I’m certainly no exception.

We moms are made to need sleep. We don’t function at our best without it, though somehow, we do still function.

Fortunately, God doesn’t have to sleep. Ever. Though you and I feel like we’ve been awake for thousands of years, He really has. He is constantly alert and watchful, continually guarding, preserving, and guiding us, and He always has been. He can run the entire universe without a single minute of sleep because He is that powerful. Lack of sleep never causes Him to get confused or cranky, like it does us. He never needs to take a break and get some rest so that He’ll be able to get back to work. No, He is infinitely far above our mortal, limited bodies.

How often we take His constant, unfailing care for granted. We fall into bed, exhausted, without so much as a thought for the One Who’s going to stay up all night taking care of us while we sleep. In fact, He performs the same ministry to us during the night as we do for our own children: He makes Himself available any time we need Him.

So tonight, when you go to bed, take a minute before you fall asleep and thank God for still being on duty taking care of you. You may want to praise Him for His inexhaustible strength and sufficiency, too. After all, when you think about it, He is truly amazing.

Psalm 121:4—Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

Persistence

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My youngest daughter, two-year-old Jessica, went through a phase where she really didn’t like to take ‘no’ for an answer. I mean, really. To her, my saying ‘no’ was little more than encouragement to repeat her request, over and over, louder and louder.

Usually, once I’ve said no, I try to be consistent. I know it’s important to stick by what I say and enforce the rules I’ve made. Otherwise, my children will learn that if they just beg, whine, or argue long enough, I’ll give in.

But I have a confession to make. It may not be the best parenting technique in the world, but sometimes, I decide that the battle isn’t worth it. There are times when I don’t really care enough about the boundary I’ve set to be willing to do battle in order to maintain it. So I give in.

When I can tell that Jessica is just being obstinate about not getting her way, it’s much easier for me to maintain my ‘no’. But when it seems that her request is really important to her, my heart is moved to listen.

It’s like the parable of the widow before the unjust judge. The unjust judge didn’t care about her request, but because of her persistence, he gave in to her so that she’d leave him alone. When Jesus told this parable, He made the point that if an unloving human being would be moved by another’s unrelenting request, how much more would God’s heart be moved by the petitions of His beloved children?

It took years before I understood this parable. I was confused by the fact that we sometimes have to ask God many times before He grants something. After all, shouldn’t once be enough?

Sometimes, it’s not, but not because God doesn’t know about our requests. After all, even before a word is on our tongue, He knows it completely. The reason we have to keep asking sometimes is so we—not He—can see how important something is to us.

Many of our requests, we’re not willing to ask about more than once. If we don’t get what we asked for, we shrug our shoulders and move on. Only if something seems vitally important right now do we pray repeatedly. Over time, our urgency seems to fade.

Most of us wouldn’t pray a mere one time for our child’s salvation, or when our children are sick, when we’re sick, or when we have a significant need that it’s obvious only God can meet. But unless it feels like a crisis to us, we usually don’t pray regularly for other things such as missionaries, political issues, or our church’s ministries.

May we learn to persist in prayer until God responds, with yes, no, or wait. Too often, we give up because we get tired of praying. May God build up our “prayer muscles” so that we have the spiritual stamina to pray as long as necessary, until God answers our requests.

For we know that in His perfect timing, He will answer. And He may grant our request precisely because of our persistence.

Luke 18:1—Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

A Bunny Did It

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“Mommy! Jessica’s coloring herself purple!”

My five-year-old son announced the news at the top of his lungs. I froze in the midst of my kitchen clean-up duty. Into my mind flashed the memory of a purple marker, lying on the coffee table, which I’d passed by, intending to pick up later. It had been well within two-year-old Jessica’s reach.

“Where is she?” I asked Kenny.

“In the chair,” Kenny said, pointing to our new, leather recliner.

Visions of purple-striped tan filled my head, and I dashed into the living room. Jessica sat looking small in the midst of overstuffed comfort, a purple marker in one hand. Her right leg bore a single streak of purple marker. Her left leg had received the brunt of her artistry.

“Jessica,” I said slowly, in that I-know-what-you-did-so-you-might-as-well-admit-it voice—the one I imagine God used in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. “Did you color yourself purple?”

Jessica blinked at me. She looked down at the marker in her hand, then back up at me.

“No,” she said innocently.

“Jessica,” I said in a less forbidding voice, hoping that taking the pressure off would cause her to own up to the obvious truth, “you colored yourself purple, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said. “Well, I colored this one.” She pointed to the leg with the single marker streak.

“Somebody else colored the other one?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding her head all the way up and all the way down.

“Who colored it?” I asked.

“Umm…a bunny,” she said.

“A bunny colored your leg?”

“Yep.” Clearly, in her mind, that settled the matter, effectively absolving her of any guilt.

Later, my husband called from work, and I told him about the incident. “I caught her with the evidence,” I said later to my husband. “I took the marker from her hand, and she still lied to me.”

“There’s a devotion in that,” my husband said.

He was right.

Too often, we mommies do the same thing Jessica did. We try to find ways around our guilt.

Do any of these excuses sound familiar?

My husband failed to be sensitive when I was having a bad day already, we say, trying to justify our disrespectful words.

But I’ve told those kids a thousand times! we sigh, remembering our tone of voice that was much too harsh and loud.

We’re experts at trying to blame our guilt on others while expecting our husband and children to toe the line.

But you know what? We don’t fool anyone. Deep down, we know we’re guilty. Our family knows it, too. And our omniscient Creator certainly sees and knows.

We need to be willing to do the same thing I wanted Jessica to do—the same thing we all want our children to do when caught in some act. We need to confess to our Father—without excuses and without playing the blame game—that we’ve sinned.

Yes, there may be consequences for our actions. But we will also find, as Jessica would have found, forgiveness and a loving embrace. Remember that Jesus came, not to condemn us, but to save us. God isn’t waiting for us to confess just so He can zap us with lightning. He wants to hear our words of repentance so He can cleanse us and restore our relationship with Him—so that we can start anew.

We may not get to play with the purple markers anymore. But there are many things to do that are more fun anyway.

1 John 1:9—If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purify us from all unrighteousness.

John 3:16—For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Believe You Me

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I’m really enjoying this phase of life where my children think I know everything.

Okay, maybe not everything. They know there are certain subjects on which Daddy is the expert, like electricity and computers. But for the rest of life, Mommy has trustworthy answers to everything.

When Ellie was three, she had a friend I’ll call Jane. Jane often told Ellie things that couldn’t possibly be true. One day, when they were playing together, Ellie came to me upset. “Mommy, Jane says she has more Hello Kitty stuff than me,” Ellie said.

But it wasn’t true.

“Ellie,” I said, “Jane says she has more stuff because she wishes it were true. She thinks if she says she has more things than you, you’ll be impressed with her.”

“Oh,” Ellie said, satisfied.

That seemed to settle the matter. Ellie returned to play with Jane, and they played happily for the rest of their time together.

I know there will be times, as Ellie gets older, when she questions my assessments of certain people and situations. But that day, she trusted me completely, believing that any answer Mommy would give her would be right.

Maybe that’s part of what Jesus meant when He talked about entering the kingdom as a little child. He knows that as adults, we are all too prone to question God’s ability to accurately assess a situation and to substitute our own judgments for His. Maybe Jesus wanted us to hang onto that childlike faith in God’s wisdom all our lives.

There have been times in my life when I wondered what God was up to, or when I didn’t see how what He was doing could be the best thing. Sometimes, I’ve substituted my judgment for His. Perhaps you have, too.

But what God wants us to learn is not to question Him as we get older. He wants us to continue to trust Him completely and without question, just as a little child trusts her mother.

Though we’re adults now, God’s knowledge and understanding surpass ours to an infinite degree, and always will. So let’s trust Him in any and every situation, not ourselves. Let’s take comfort in the fact that Someone so all-wise and all-knowing watches over us. And let’s thank Him for the fact that He knows everything and takes care of it all so that we don’t have to.

Job 38:18—“Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.”

Jeremiah 29:11—“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.”

Intentions

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I didn’t realize how much Ellie was looking forward to celebrating Mother’s Day until she came running into the room and announced, “Mommy! Sunday is Mother’s Day! That means we get to celebrate you! Daddies go to work and make money, but mothers take care of you every day of your life!”

Excitedly, Ellie told me about all her plans, which she repeated several times in subsequent days, for making my day special. She was going to buy me “a bunch” of pink roses. She would let me stay in bed all day and bring me breakfast in bed. She and my other children would be extra-nice to me, because “that’s what kids should do on Mother’s Day”. (I even heard her instructing the other kids in this principle.)

Her excitement at celebrating me as her mother touched a place deep in my heart. Due to her completely sincere, heartfelt offerings, I will remember her words forever…even though things didn’t work out quite the way she had planned.

On Mother’s Day, I woke up while (so I thought) no one else in the house was yet awake. But soon, I heard little feet coming my way, and Jessica walked in, sleepily squinting her eyes, and asking to nurse. So I tended to Jessica’s needs. Soon, Kenny woke up, and I helped him with breakfast.

When my husband got up, we began getting everyone ready for church. Lindsey and Ellie still weren’t up, so we had to wake them up. I thought Ellie might be disappointed that all her plans for me hadn’t worked out. As it turned out, she wasn’t.

In fact, she didn’t even mention the gone-by-the-wayside plans. I considered whether or not I should feel hurt that she had forgotten, but I decided not to. After all, I knew her intentions had been good. Her failure to remember and implement the wonderful plans she had come up with was nothing more than the forgetfulness of a seven-year-old. It didn’t reflect any lack of love for me on her part.

I wonder how God feels when you and I forget to follow through on our intentions towards Him.

We promise ourselves, and Him, that we will spend regular time in prayer or Bible study, and then days go by without our following through. Or we tell Him we’ll serve a brother or sister in a particular way, then never get around to doing it.

I bet God gets disappointed, just like I was when Ellie forgot to carry out the plans she’d promised. God loves spending time with us, and He enjoys it when we do things for Him. So when we fail to do either one, we deprive Him of the relationship or enjoyment He longs to experience. We deprive ourselves, too.

Father, forgive us for all the times we could have spent time with you, and didn’t, and for everything we promised You we would do, then didn’t even remember. Renew us so that our relationship with You is first and foremost in our thoughts and mind, above anything else. Lord, we want to spend time with You because we love You. And we’re so very grateful that You desire to spend time with us.

In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Psalm 116:18-19—I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD—in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD.

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