Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Usually when people make a comment to me about the struggles of raising multiple small children my response is, "It sure is sanctifying!".  Children rip us of our greed and selfishness.  We can no longer put ourselves first…..or in my case second, third, or fourth.  I LOVE being a mom but I'll be the first to admit that  I would really love just one day to go by when I don't get interrupted using the bathroom.  Children are sanctifying.

But on our first night in our new home in our new country it was my 5 year old who humbled my heart by singing praises and giving thanks to our Lord while I was..well not.

We had been in our country for 4 days and had been staying in a hotel while our house got "ready".  So the day it was supposed to be done we checked out of our hotel and moved our humungo pile of luggage to a family's house who already live there and went about our day.  Well the landlord didn't produce the keys until after 9 that night.  In retrospect we should have just asked to stay at this family's house and move in the next day.  But we were told it was move in ready and it wouldn't be a problem.  So after taking one trip of luggage over our whole crew went to check it out.  My man dropped me and the kids off while he went to get the last load of luggage.  I looked around and it was sooo dirty.  Not like I'm being a clean freak (which I am kind of) it was like piles of dirt on the floor, globs of hair in the drain of the bathroom sink, old food in the kitchen sink, old/not washed sheets on the beds kind of dirty.  Not to mention there wasn't even a toilet seat.  (So there I was 7 month pregnant holding my 5 and 3 year old over the toilet trying to get them to pee).  After a few minutes of trying to move through our mountain of luggage to find sheets and towels and something to clean things with I melted into a puddle of tears in our girls' room.  I sobbed and got angry that we were thrown into this at 10 o'clock at night with three tired kids.  Trying to pull myself together a bit I pulled the kids in close and asked our 5 year old if she wanted to pray and thank God for our new house.  She enthusiastically did and this is what she prayed:

"Awesome God in heaven, thank you for our new house, thank you that it is big and that we have closets to hang our clothes in.  Thank you for the pink flowers on my wall and that we get to live in our new country.  In Jesus name, Amen."

As I was putting back together the pieces of my humbled heart, I looked around her room and above her door was the only beautiful thing in the whole house, pink flower stickers that she had immediately noticed and thanked God for.  I then prayed my own prayer of thanking God for my children and that when I was prone to wander  this verse rang true "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise".  

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