I don’t think there is anything in the world more thrilling than seeing God. Though He might not make himself visible to the eye, He unquestionably shows His hand through circumstances. I have a friend whose name is Barbara. She is one of the neatest ladies I know, and when I think about the reason I love to be around her, one main thing comes to mind. She always has the greatest stories to tell about the Lord. I used to think, ‘Wow, God speaks to her a lot…I wish He spoke to me that way.’ Years later, as I was struggling in my day-to-day job, I was encouraged by a friend to always look for my “God Moment” of the day. That way, I wouldn’t focus on the mundane things at work, but I would look for something God was doing. As I began to deliberately look for my ‘God Moments’, miraculously I began to find them. I realized later that THIS was indeed what my friend Barbara has always done. God doesn’t speak to her more than the rest of us, she just chooses to look for Him in the every day things and consequently, she finds Him.
As a mom, it is easy to get worn out. Worn out with laundry, worn out with dishes, worn out with picking up the house just to watch it get messed up again and it is always very easy to get worn out disciplining your children. You wake up every day to repeat the same words you did the day before, “I told you yesterday not to touch that. Quit hitting your sister. Why can’t you just say, ‘Okay mom’ instead of complaining? Why do I have to say it 4 times before you actually do it? You need to obey me the first time I tell you.” Sometimes we don’t see any progress from the day before and then mothering can become a major let down. But recently, I decided to begin using my strategy of looking for “God Moments” at work…at HOME. I would try to find the “God Moments” with my child.
I had a “God Moment” today.
I am not one of those moms who wakes up before her kids to have breakfast, coffee and a quiet time. Nope. I’m a night owl. I do all of my Bible reading and recouping time at night after Wes goes to bed. Because of that, I sleep in with him too. He is my alarm clock. When he gets up, I get up. This morning, as usual, he walked into my room and patted me on the arm. Still half asleep, I rolled over to look at him and groggily said, “Good morning Buddy.” He said good morning back and he was off to play for a few minutes. I laid in bed for about 5 more minutes before dragging myself into the breakfast room to check on him and throw some cereal together for breakfast. As I was walking in from the hallway, I noticed that he had already gotten into the muffin bag and was sitting at the table eating his first of 2 muffins. As I stepped closer to the table, I saw a 3rd muffin sitting in the place where I usually sit. “That’s odd,” I thought in my head. But then I wondered how it got there, so I asked Wes, “Did you put that muffin here at my place?” He just responded, “Yes” with no explanation. I looked at him again and said, “Well, is it for me?” Again, he said, “Yes” and then this time with a big grin he added 4 tiny little words, “I made you breakfast.” I proceeded to just stare at him, my face beaming. I kind of felt like my heart might burst. I was on a high, the way you feel when you’ve just run a marathon or completed some big cleaning project, except bigger. All I could do was squeeze him, which is what I did for a bit. This was my God Moment.
Why would those 4 little words be a God Moment? … because God gave me hope. Hope that I’m not failing as a mom, hope that I’m not ruining my kid, hope that at some point Wes is going to attain all of the training I am giving him. HOPE. Hope can take you a long ways as a mom. Hope can help you raise a young boy into a man, because that’s really what we’re all doing. We aren’t just raising little kids every day, we are raising husbands and friends and fathers.
I pray that one day Wes’s 3 year old thoughtfulness of placing an extra muffin out for me turns into taking a meal to a friend who just lost a loved one or making breakfast for his wife on a Saturday morning, or making special birthday breakfasts for his kids just because he loves them.
“I made you breakfast.” Thank you Lord for that sweet “God Moment”. I am grateful.
