Lesson 19: Just like my screaming baby in her highchair...

Yesterday was a doozie! It began with a less than stellar start...you can ask my friends I work with how I made a crying fool of myself! By the time I got home with Julia we were getting ready to eat supper and walk out the door for church. I think we may have been home 45 minutes total before we left. In those short few minutes she decides to have one of the biggest breakdowns I think I have ever seen. She had no desire whatsoever to stay in her highchair and eat...and I was determined she was going to stay and at least get in a few bites!!! Needless to say, after she started hyperventilating (literally) I finally got her out of the highchair. That really didn't help because at that point she was so far gone it took the rest of the time at home to get her to stop crying! Then, off to church...having not eaten a bite mind you :)

After I got home and Julia went down for the night, I threw my own little tantrum. Directed at whom, you might ask? None other than the One who gave me that sweet child in the first place. I was really struggling with the not being a stay-at-home mom issue...again. "If You are able to fix this, then why aren't You doing anything about it??"....."On a day that we are only home for 45 minutes, does our time together have to be a fighting match...not really any quality time?"..."  And the questions went on...and on...and on. Thankfully, what I had read earlier in the day popped back in my mind to help me get through the onslaught of all those emotions!...

"I'm on a diet of tears - tears for breakfast, tears for supper (didn't really know this was going to be what I had for breakfast and supper...ha!)... Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God - soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God. When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you, From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar (my Jordan depths would be how He walked us through the past 3 years of life...rehearsing over and over again what I remembered to be true of His character, not just what I felt at the time)... ~ excerpts from Psalm 42.  I wonder sometimes why my auto-pilot response is to question God instead of trust Him immediately. I certainly have no clue what He is working in our lives but I do know He is reliable. I guess that is something David struggled with as well...he had to rehearse over and over again in his mind all of the experiences in his life where God had been faithful. I have those times too where I can look back and see how He brought us through something painful, or difficult.  So at the end of yesterday I realized that the way I looked at Julia pitching a fit in her highchair was the same way God was looking at me pitching my fit. In spite of my wanting to get out of this unpleasant situation, He realizes (like I did with Julia) that sometimes staying put is the best thing...even if it isn't what I want...or like. 

Not every high chair moment is a bad one :)