I love Fridays!
I love the moment when I walk out of the office, knowing that I’m done for the week, and looking forward to the time I get to spend with my daughter. This particular Friday, the weather had finally warmed up, melting some of the snow and the sun was high in the sky. It was the first Friday after we changed the clocks for Daylight Saving Time. I was excited and started making all the mental plans of just what my daughter and I would do together. We could go to the store, and maybe pick up a new outfit, or we could go to another store and buy flowers. The possibilities of what to do with our Friday evening were endless.
I did my usual routine. I got off the the train and bought her donut, and proceeded to pick her up. As usual, her first question after she greeted me ‘mommy, where are we going today?’ I usually like to keep her in suspense for a little while, so I told her we were going out, but not where. We got in the car and her donut is already right next to her. She is excited. I picked one I thought she would like: pink frosting with sprinkles. When she opened the bag, she said that had been her favorite. There was excitement in the air for both of us. Until I made the mistake of asking for a taste. For some reason, I was craving something sweet, and I thought to get a little munchkin donut for myself and decided not to, but the craving had not gone away. I figured, no problem, my daughter rarely eats her whole donut anyway, I’ll get a taste of hers. When I asked, her very quick answer was ‘no’. What?
We’d had a similar conversation just two days before that when I asked her to share something with me, there should be no hesitancy. I do almost everything for her, and rarely ask for anything. She was adamant about the donut. Her response was a resounding no.
Instead of stopping at either stores like I had intended, we ended up driving right by as I lectured her on the merits of being kind to her mother and that if she wasn’t kind, there were certain things that she would not be able to experience, i.e. going to the store this particular day. We ended up going straight home. And I still tried to expound to her that we needed to take care of each other. And how disappointed I was by her treatment of me. Yes, she’s 4, but she’s not too young to start learning these lessons.
Then I started having the nagging sense that this was something I did all the time to my Heavenly Father. How many times does He give me the desires of my heart, then He asks me to do something and my answer is a resounding ‘NO’? Oy! I wonder if Jesus gets as disappointed in me as I was disappointed by my daughter. I had all these great plans for her, and when my simple request was met with a resounding ‘NO’, I had to put these plans on hold for another day. I wonder if He has these great plans for me, but my response keeps being ‘NO’ and He has to put His plans for me on hold.
Dear Heavenly Father, please help me to learn the lessons that you are teaching me through my 4 year old. Please help me to be willing to say yes to whatever it is that you are asking of me. Help me to realize that my reward can be much greater by doing what little you have asked me to do.