I still remember what my favorite donut was when I was a little girl: the strawberry icing one at Dunkin’ Donuts. I loved that donut. I chose it every time I had the chance.
So I can understand Timmy’s love affair with chocolate sprinkle donuts. After all, they’re pretty good, too. Topped with chocolate and colorful sprinkles, what’s not to love?
Apparently…the cake part of the donut.
The other day, my husband stopped by our neighborhood bakery and brought home treats for all of us. Timmy, of course, got his chocolate sprinkle donut. He dug into it immediately, and I walked off, eating my own treat, and didn’t think any more about Timmy’s donut.
Until he came and found me and held out the remnants of his snack. “Do you want this?” he asked politely. “It doesn’t have sprinkles anymore.”
Indeed, it didn’t, except for a few stragglers near the inner hole. The rest of the sprinkles were gone—removed, presumably, by the teeth that left bite-shaped marks in the frosting and sheared off the barest smidgen of the top of the actual donut.
I found this rather amusing. Here, I ate off all the good stuff. So now that I’m through with it, do you want the boring stuff that’s left?
It’s amusing when a child offers us his leftovers. What’s not always so amusing is when you and I offer our children our leftovers.
I’m talking about leftovers like our leftover time, patience, and emotional energy.
Too often, we get our priorities way out of whack. We focus on something else to the exclusion (or near-exclusion) of the things or people that should be most important to us. And then all we’ve got to give them is whatever wasn’t swallowed up by something else.
Believe me, moms, I understand that some days it’s difficult to muster up the emotional energy to play Candy Land one more time. I know it can be hard to find the time to sit down with our children and really listen to whatever is on their little minds and hearts. I don’t work outside the home, but I had a career before becoming a stay-at-home mom, and I am well aware there are days when you just want to come home from work and have a peaceful evening, where nobody wants anything more from you.
When this happens occasionally, it’s usually not that big a deal. Our kids need to know that we’re people, too. That we get tired, too. We have needs, too.
But it does become a problem when giving our kids our leftovers is our standard way of living life. Our usual thing. Kids know where they rank in our affections.
Are you giving your children what they need? Are you pouring the best of yourself into their lives as often as you have opportunity?
Don’t give them a donut that you don’t want anymore.
Let them have the sprinkles, too.
Philippians 2:17—Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. (ESV)