So for the past year of N's life I have really been on cloud nine. Everything he does and says is just the greatest. Besides the lack of sleep, my little angel could do no wrong in my eyes (not counting some behavior issues that come from an emerging independent one year old). I have never taken any of his behaviors personally and understand that all of the good stuff is a blessings and the few issues are because he is human. That is until yesterday....
For those of you who know me, I am somewhat of a clean freak. Yes our small apartment is full of stuff, but I purge things at least once a month, dust faithfully twice a week, clean my floors every other day- now my floors are the clincher. I need to have clean floors especially living with a crawler and owning a hairy cat. I have a sign on our door for EVERYONE to remove their shoes and I admit that I am somewhat neurotic about it. Well my neurosis about clean floors is just not working with a toddler. I told my husband the other day and I need to chill out about having perfectly clean floors or I need to start blending all of my son's food and making him drink it through a straw- I seriously considered the latter option.
Yesterday in particular, he was such a messy eater. Breakfast was messy, lunch was really messy, and dinner was unbelievable messy- dumping ALL of his dinner on the floor. My heart was so angered and I felt as though he was out to get me. Unbelievably, I held it together on the outside and continued with his meal, but my heart was not in the right place.
Knowing this, I decided that I owed him an apology. After our nighttime routine of bath, books, and prayers, I looked him in the eyes of my fourteen month old and apologized for the anger that I had in that moment and asked him for his forgiveness. At that exact moment he kissed me on the cheek and put his head on my shoulder. Oh my word- my tears began flowing like the Nile. He gets it!- yeah I know not all of it- but definitely some of it.
God is working in his little heart and God sure did reveal Himself to me in that little sweet moment. I felt as thought God was reassuring me that I will mess up and the important part is that I recognize it, seek forgiveness for it, and pray for strength to not do it again.
So here is my encouragement especially for all of you parents out there, be quick to see forgiveness when you have wronged your children (or your spouse), you are teaching them so much by doing so. God so graciously forgives us and for this I am forever grateful!
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Aw, what a sweet little guy. They are the best at true forgiveness. I think I am up to about at least once a day of asking Áine for forgiveness for not being patient with her. She always does :). You are a good mama, just like Noah is human so are you. He is lucky to have a mama that knows she needs forgiveness just like he does. What better way to teach him his own need than to show him your need.
ReplyDeleteReading this couldn't come at a better time. The past couple of days, my little Sophia has decided she doesn't want to nap, and doesn't want to leave mommy's side. Yesterday, I let my exhaustion get the better of me and I laid her down, and let her cry. Five minutes later, I couldn't believe what I had done. I ran up to her room, lifted her in my arms, broke down in tears saying, "I'm sorry, please forgive me." She looked up at me and gave me her biggest smile yet - and with that, I knew she forgave me.
ReplyDelete(Jill Pedersen-Rose)