I started and stopped and deleted several draft “love notes” this week. I so want to write and talk with you but I can’t seem to get my thoughts to come out in clear sentences! With a sick 2 year-old, a busy 4 year-old, 30-ish animals and a stomach bug myself, things are just not “normal” at Shepherd’s Gate.
Why can toddlers can open every door and drawer but close none? Why do they use the word “no” so emphatically but follow a “no” direction so poorly? My 4-year-old granddaughter can change her clothes a “million” times a day. Apparently taking toys out of boxes is easy but putting them back in the box is impossibly difficult. Anything with water in it, is something to play with. If you cut a hot dog the “wrong” way, you make it inedible. Ugh.
I’ve been here before: “survival mode”. I accomplish one small thing at a time, focus on what is literally right in front of me, lower my expectations – and keep up with the laundry. Everyone is feeling much better today, thankfully. Kinsley, who is 4, chatters continuously. Yesterday in the pasture, from her perch on my milking stool, she told me, “I like watching Meme.” (Good girl!)
“Tell me what you see, Kinsley.” I said
“I see the duck putting his whole head under water!”, she laughs.
“It’s bath time. He is cleaning himself….” and the lesson continued about how ducks clean their feathers and why they need to stay clean. So many lessons as we go about our day. Daily animals chores present lessons in kindness, gentleness, compassion, perseverance and patience.
Young children, illness, situations out of our control… impose change to our schedules, priorities and perspectives, don’t they? How we choose to respond when life seems to be spinning out of our control is part of our growth process. The ability to slow your life, even to stop for moments, and focus on who and what matter the most, requires faith, trust. and love. We have to stop looking at ourselves to take care of someone else. We have to believe that there is value in our sacrifice (even when no one notices).
God does something amazing in us when we are focused on someone else. Experience love and beauty in the pouring out of your heart, soul and time into another life. Put the mirror down and see what HE sees. He sees beauty in sacrificial love. He taught us from His own heart, the power of unconditional, unfathomable, completely sacrificial love (John 3:16). Take comfort in knowing that “this season” will pass – but so too will the opportunities that accompany it.
“And this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12
