"Don't believe her (mom). She told me the same thing about my baby blanket, and I'm still waiting." Hearing those words come out of Half-pint's mouth was enough to make me want to grab and eat an entire bag of Ghiradelli chocolate chips...or two. My heart plummeted. Gracie had already asked me at least a hundred times to sew up the hole in her stuffed Harley's ear; and, no, I'm actually not exaggerating. Gracie is the squeekiest, noisy "wheel" in our household of seven. I kept putting her off. I kept saying "I will fix the ear when I have time." That's the same thing my 10-year-old has been hearing for six years about a knitting project I began shortly after Carrie was born. It's the same excuse, just a different situation. It hurt to hear my jaded daughter talk about her lack of trust. I don't remember what age I was when I realized my mom didn't hang the moon, but that feeling of distrust grew and clung on until I hit motherhood. That's when I matured enough to realize how unfair and selfish I had been as a kid.
Now there is the replay of distrust in my own family. There is always something that comes between me and the things I intend to do. Sometimes it a major life upheaval that buries my promise like packing and unpacking twice in two years. Sometimes it the addition of a new baby and being incapable to sit for 15 minutes straight to knit and purl the hundred and twenty-eight stitches to complete a row in her "baby" blanket (I've had two babies since I began this project). Sometimes it is simply the lure of baking fresh cookies that are more appealing than completing a project that has already taken more time than it should've. It did take me roughly ten years to finish my hubby's blanket though, so maybe it's not that far overdue. I could remind Half-pint of this fact, but something tells me that wouldn't make her feel better. After all, here I am blogging when I could be knitting. I tend to get all philosophical and think about how someday she will understand how unfair she is being. I have a lot on my plate. I live in the land of the urgent, but unimportant...demands for water lid removals, and moans of help with writing "hundredth", and screams of accidents in the bathroom, or watching the snot run down, almost past, our one-year-old's lip. Still, my mommy heart grieves the loss of her trust. It hurts, just as I have hurt her by letting her down.
This past weekend, this failure came to my mind as I was asking God to help me examine what I should confess before partaking in communion (I'm not down with the whole 1 Cor. 11:30 sickness/"sleeping" issue...I like a clean slate). At first, I just apologized for the hurt I had inflicted on Half-pint. Her blanket just hasn't been a priority. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe I was to use this to point her to God. Everyone in life disappoints us, but God is perfect. Maybe I needed to capitalize on that. My heart wasn't in that though. The honest truth is that I am disappointed with God at times. He is perfect, but it's hard to remember that when I sometimes feel like the old (introverted) woman who lived in a shoe who had so many children that she didn't know what to do...and she homeschools them. Our home isn't perfect (it's cozy), but God put me here for a reason. I have a lot of kids (that I asked for... and one I didn't), but I truly love them and being their mom. I know that God gave them to me for a reason besides making me more tolerant of noisy, small spaces like our van rides. It'd just be easier if He told me why all the time, but that would require no faith.
That's when it dawned on me. I have been acting like a hurt ten-year-old, demanding my finished blanket. I want to know it all right now, not once my life is finished. God isn't too busy for me, but He definitely has a different sense of timing than I do. When I allow my doubts to cloud my view of His goodness, it hurts Him just as deeply as it did me when Half-pint voiced her loss of confidence. He knows the future and the good that will come from my struggles (Jer. 29:11). God wants me to trust Him no matter what (Prov. 3:5-6). Feeling the pain of Half-pint's disappointment brought it home for me. I had to apologize to God for doubting Him, His goodness, and His perfect timing...and hurting Him.
Life has felt overwhelming lately, especially with the holiday season. I don't understand it all, but I trust that God does. It's time to wait patiently. My blanket's not finished. In the meantime, maybe I'll knit a little more and make someone else's heart happy.
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