This summer, my kids aren’t bored.
In fact, they are too busy fighting over inconsequential things, tattling unimportant news to me, and provoking one another for benefit of their own enjoyment.
I may be losing. my. mind.
Every day each child awakes seeking new opportunities to win this “King of the Hill” competition in our home.
No one wants to lose, and yet we all lose when as we live like this. We lose peace, we lose joy, and we lose our tempers. If we live like this forever, we could lose each other.
We have been studying Jonah this month at church, and the inside of a fish sounds much better than this little piece of Nineveh in which I live.
But God has more for us than that. God offers us love that eclipses our circumstances.
I am praying for hope and love to rise and blot out the selfishness that is growing around here.
Because my own heart needs an eclipse, too, so that I can love God and praise Him while serving my children with patient love- even when they refuse to do the same for each other.
It may take a miracle in all of our hearts, but miracles are sometimes more common than we expect.
And so I take deep breaths, and give extra kisses. I calmly correct the violent attackers and hold the hurting hands in mine. I will teach them to forgive, encourage them to apologize, and ask them to pray when both feel like unconquerable mountains.
And I will pray and wait, sing and praise, and when we move on to days full of new mercies I will stand and proclaim our miracle:
“We love because He first loved us.” -1 John 4:19
