She jumps into the car beaming to be going to her friend’s house for the first time in a month.  Red dress and purple leggings bursting with cuteness.  I…looking forward to much needed one on one time on the riverfront with the boy.  Reading books and waiting for trains.  A promise he had looked forward to all day.

We plan.  We hurry.  We get there. I turn the handle of the door.  She looks down. A tear. Pout.  A lament. A whine.

I steam underneath.

Plans shattered. Boy shattered. Friend shattered.

I want to give grace for the moment of shyness, but I also see a need for standing firm in some areas in response to the whining and allowing her to have her way immediately.  I am in turmoil with mixed emotions: compassion, frustration, desire for growth, sadness for the boy and friend who are disappointed.

We are going to HAVE to wait.  Give her time to get her feet wet.  The boy will have to wait in a house full of girl stuff.  I am going to have to wait…not hurry…to get the next thing done.  We will have to spend an hour waiting.

While it is a small thing…waiting…in an everyday moment…something big is playing out. 

The boy and I are yielding to what God has in store for us.  I am forced to think things through.  To get my mind right as this thing plays out before God and others.

Because if I don’t think properly about this, I’m going to make a mistake and hurry.  Handle this in my own way and hurt another.

Ann Voskamp says, “Hurry hurts kids.”  It has been about a year now…maybe more…that I’ve had her list of 10+  Real Helps for Really Busy Moms taped to the inside of my kitchen cupboards.  And though they are not scripture…they are words based in scriptural truths and they are becoming a part of my worldview.

1. “Life is not an emergency. Life’s a gift. Just Slow.”

 So I slow. Breathe.

2. “Now is not a forever grace but amazing grace.  Do whatever it takes to wake to wonder right here.”

As she plays alone for a bit, I sit next to the infant on the floor and wonder…again…at infant eyes taking in what is complex to her in my simple surroundings.  The lights from a toy how they reflect off of the blanket and soft blocks easily knocked over.  She is mesmerized and using all of her intelligence to figure it out.

Is this perhaps what is happening to my three year old as she figures out being left alone at a friend’s?

3. “Sometimes the slowest way is the fastest way to joy.  Make time today, even a moment, to read Scripture and memorize it. Without the lens of His Word, the world warps.”

Maybe the Word I read this morning is taking root.

4. “Laughter is the cheapest, holiest medicine.  Preschoolers laugh 300 times a day. Aim for double that. Tickle someone, (yourself!), if necessary. This is good!”

The boy has found entertainment on an i-pad and cuts hair electronically.  He is delighted and laughing. The baby giggles a contagious giggle as I pretend-sting her over and over with a stuffed bee.

5. “Motherhood is a hallowed place because children aren’t commonplace.  Co-laboring over the sculpting of souls is a sacred vocation, a humbling privilege. Never forget.”

I wonder at my friend’s infant child.  The complex in my simple surroundings.  How she can take this all in, how I can make her smile, how she looks like her sister, how she is growing so fast.  While she was just the baby when I first walked into the house, she is now brilliant and everything but commonplace.

6. “Homemaking is about making a home, not about making perfection.  A perfect home is an authentic, creative, animated space where Peace and Christ and Beauty are embraced.  {Perfect does not equate to immaculate.}”

I love how my friend does not mind having toys and blankets and proof of children right out in the open to be seen and valued as you walk in the front door.

 7. “A pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over. A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted, a small moment missed.”

I finally see that this is a moment not to be missed.  An important milestone for my girl.  A beautiful moment in friendship to be taken in. Breathed. Slowly.

8. “Believe it: I have all I need for today.   The needs of our day are great but our God is greater and we call Him Providence because we believe: He is the one who always provides.  {And when God provides, He should be praised, and if God always provides, shouldn’t praise always be on the lips?}”

I thank God for a patient friend who provides grace  knowing she’s been right where I am.

9. “Slow. Children at play. The hurry hurts the kids.  Time’s the priceless currency and only the slow spend it wise enough to be rich. If we had to actually buy our time, would we spend it more wisely — spend it more slowly?{God’s Word never says Hurry Up. God words only whisper: Wake Up.}”

So I am rich in this moment.

10. “Love is patient.  Parenting’s this gentle way of bending over in humility to help the scraped child up because we intimately know it takes a lifetime to learn how to walk with Him. Patience.  Love always begins with patience.”

 And…oh…by the way…I am still learning too.  I’m so thankful for my Lord’s long suffering patience with me.

11. “The art of really celebrating life isn’t about getting it right — but about receiving Grace.  The sinners and the sick, the broken, the discouraged, the wounded and burdened — we are the ones who get to celebrate grace!  Regardless of the mess of your life, if Christ is Lord of your life, than we are the celebrants out dancing in a wild rain of grace — because when it’s all done and finished, all is well and Christ already said it was finished.”

My husbands words come to me.  He says that statistics show…it is proven…that the way to deal with parenting frustrations and disappointments is to either handle rebuking, disciplining and correcting in a gracious gentle way…or don’t give it at all.  Because discipline with anger produces rebellious and angry children.

As I receive grace in this moment, I consider the messy moment.  Her need for grace more than anything.  

And eventually…after waiting and yielding to grace… she comes out made new.  Sleeping Bauty dress, makeup and smile on.  Radiant. Dancing in a wild rain of grace. 

Linking up today with these sweet sites: