1. DUNKIN DONUTS FRENCH VANILLA COFFEE IS HORRIBLE
Let's just get this one over and done with. This lesson makes me incredibly sad. This non-morning, drag-myself-out of-bed-with-my-sleep-mask-still-on kind of person was actually excited about getting up to let my taste buds savor this coffee. I mean, I love DUNKIN DONUTS regular coffee. Why wouldn't I love their french vanilla coffee? I thought it would be a coffee dream come true. Come to find out it tastes like a BIG ole chemical. Who would have thunk? I mean, yes, many of the ingredients are ones I can't pronounce. But, I thought with my big ol' bottle of Coffeemate Vanilla Creamer (not organic) that I dump into my coffee to make white, it would be an extra vanilla-ey taste of vanilla heaven. Not so much. Come to find out its like a big gulp of radioactive chemicals pulsing through my veins and ruining my taste buds on the way down. #FAIL. (P.S. Paleo masters, you will never pry my coffee creamer out of these hands)
2. I AM STILL NOT A MORNING PERSON
I thought after a couple days of watching the glorious sunrise and hearing the small still voice of the Lord, I would somehow be changed to the girl who doesn't even need an alarm clock. The glorious sun rising up above the power lines would be my only wake up call. The girl who just wakes up with a smile on her face, jumps out of bed, ready to be awesome. Nope. I still hate getting up, but do love it once I am UP. Which still takes 2 marimba iphone snoozes.
3. I DON'T DO GRACE VERY WELL
This one is quite the conundrum to me. I expect others to give me lots of grace. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have been saved by grace, a free gift that God gave me when his son died on the cross, yet it is so hard for me to seem to dole out grace for others. I know I did nothing to earn this gift of grace. And maybe I love earning things so much that therein lies the problem. Maybe I haven't really understood the gift is FREE. Like free kittens in the Walmart parking lot. Like super free. nothing I can do to get it, and nothing stellar I have done to earn it. Did I mention I like earning things? It makes me feel important and quite frankly it makes me feel in control. The first morning I started waking up early for my silence and solitude this is the verse I read:
Let me give you a rundown of the characters in this play:
Holden 5, (tender, thoughtful, and more compassion in his little pinky then in my whole body)
Carter Mae, almost 2, (full of zeal, passion, joy, maybe more independent than her mother, spit-fire)
Carter Mae idolizes her brother. Holden loves his sister like nobody's business. So we can't figure out why the last month Carter Mae has been beating the crap out of her brother. Like pinching, biting,and pushing. Whenever he won't give her something, she goes MMA fighter on his sweet little self. The weird thing is she does this with NO ONE else. Not even friends that jack her toys from her, (I know because I am the sneaky mom that watches when they aren't looking). Her little report card at school even says she loves sharing. So, I am perplexed as to why she wants to inflict pain on her brother who she adores. Maybe because she knows he's a compassionate soul. Or maybe because it's easiest to hurt the ones we are closest to. #preach
A couple of days ago we had one of these incidents and I had to spank sister and take her to time-out. Yes, double whammy. As she is crying, wailing, screaming while sitting in time-out, Holden looks at me with fresh tears still in his eyes from her going all "Mike Tyson" on his arm and says, "Mom, can I get something for sis, like a stuffed animal so she will feel better in time-out?" ME: "What, are you crazy?" I thought, "She just beat you up, I can still see the marks her bicuspids made on your right arm. Let the little girl suffer in her time out. She deserves it. She needs to suffer the consequence, no easy forgiveness here."
But, at that moment I realized the valuable lesson Holden taught me. It's not always about the consequences you deserve, sometimes it's about the compassion someone gives to you freely. It's called Grace. I need it and I sure don't deserve it. I need to give it to others like my son so freely gave it to his sister. Thank you, brother, for calling me out. You will forever teach me grace.
4. I NEED GOD EVERY MINUTE
One of the exercises in the book, An Invitation to Silence and Solitude, is to choose a prayer phrase that expresses your desire or need for God these days in the simplest terms possible. Mine for this day was, "I NEED YOU." Don't really know why that was put on my heart, but it was like God was saying, "You need me. Every hour, in every relationship, in every mama drama, in everyone you train, in EVERY THING." So about 10 minutes after I had this wonderful "sitting with Jesus-needing-him-moment," I was putting the top on our jeep, which I thought was already put on. I had exactly 4.5 minutes to get it on or we would be late to carpool.
Do you know what late-to-carpool means?
It means I would have to traipse in that school with my 3 day old yoga pants on, sunglasses off (which would show the mascara I forgot to get off the night before), and sister with her jammies and wet diaper still on. WE CANNOT MISS CARPOOL, where it doesn't matter if I wear pants because they can't see me behind the steering wheel and we cover sis with a blanket if she happens to be naked. (Which happens on occasion.) I am frantically trying to wedge the jeep top on, I am may or may not be sweating, cursing, and almost to tears because of the frustration. Finally, at 6 minutes we are raring down the street at mock speed. I am still sweating. And I just hear the little whisper of God saying, "See Kristi, you need me."
Thank you God for helping me catch a glimpse of your grace. Help me have a deeper sense of needing you each hour. And thanks for actual good coffee.