A Willing Heart
A willing heart is malleable. And I wonder if this mama has a willing
heart. I love my girls, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I’m just really
selfish about my time and space. And willingness to interact positively with
those girls is just lacking at those times. Willingness to play, to read, to
craft … and in those activities, to teach. How many teachable moments have I
lost simply because I wasn’t willing to let go of my own selfish desires? Today
is a new day. Today is a day where I am willing, a day I remind myself of the
need to be willing. A day where I need to consciously choose to be willing to
play, to read, to craft, maybe even to bake (with a 3.5 year old?!?!) … k, that
last one might be a tad crazy.
When I think about examples of willingness to emulate, I think about my
3.5 year old daughter. Like this morning when I commented to Darran (in pride)
how impressed I was that we’ve been able to keep our house quite tidy for at
least 1 whole week and that we need to make effort to keep it tidy! Annalise
piped up, “No Mommy, it’s not really tidy yet. There are still things to pick
up … like those newspapers! I will do that for you Mommy!” And she did! Just
like that! And she was proud of her success in tidying. And I was proud of her
unselfish willingness to help. Yesterday she tried to sweep the kitchen floor
(and hurt herself in the process by getting the broom stuck and jabbing her gut
with it). Instead of thanking her for her help and willingness to help, I
criticized her for doing something she didn’t even ask about first! Instead of
praising a servant heart, I criticized! Oh, if only my heart could be as
willing as hers!
Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could be as willing as the young children? My older boys are seldom as willing to help anymore and reading this has me pondering how much of that relates back to me. Good luck baking with your 3.5 year old...lots of deep breaths! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! :) To make the baking easier, I will wait until the 1.5 year old is napping ... otherwise I'm guaranteed chaos and that's just scary! :) I agree that as our children grow and become more unwilling to help, it totally relates back to how we, as parents, behave towards the. Even the fact that my daughter helped tidy up this morning was something special. A year ago she ALWAYS wanted to help and throughout the last year, she's become less and less willing and I'm pretty sure it's because I'm not modelling it well to her. Scary what influence we have over these little ones entrusted to us!
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