Eden's had a hard time since Ezra's come along. She has her sweet moments, but the sassiness has reached an all time high and a new game has been put into play--manipulation. It drives me crazy! Most days I can handle it though. I either ignore it or tell her that such things just aren't true. It depends on how much I feel like talking. When I'm tired though, I believe her. I get so discouraged in my parenting and feel like it's a reflection of me as her mom. I believe the lies.
When I went to mom's group this past Thursday, one of the mom's shared a little story that she'd gotten in an email. It goes:
It was advertised that the devil was putting his tools up for sale. When the day of the
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sale came, each tool was priced and laid out for public inspection. And what a collection
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it was. Hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit or pride…the inventory was treacherous. Off to one
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side was a harmless-looking tool priced higher than all the rest, even though it was
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obviously more worn than any other tool the devil owned. “What’s the name of this tool?”
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asked one of the customers. “That,” the devil replied, “is discouragement.”
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The customer asked, “But why have you priced it so high?” The devil smiled and
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explained, “Because discouragement is more useful to me than all the others.
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I can pry open and get inside a man’s heart with that tool when I can’t get near
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him with any other. It’s badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since so
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few people know it belongs to me.
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I love this. After sharing some of these hardships with my mom and with Mike, we all concluded that Eden needed some extra attention. My spirit was willing but my flesh was so weak on this one. I love time to myself, or time to do projects. But selflessness is my calling as a mother.
On Saturday morning around 6, we were all up. I told her at about 6:10 that her and I were going to spend a little time together, just the two of us. I think she was ready to go at 6:11. We went to the coffee shop right down the road, perhaps two or three blocks away. She ordered a hot chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie the size of our dinner plates. We sat, we talked, and I cried.
She is so precious to me, my beautiful girl. I love the sparkle in her eyes, and the joy she exudes. She's a contagious person. I sat there, taking her all in. Thinking how could I've been so silly not to see that she needs this so bad. She needs just me sometimes. My time, my energy, my touch, all uninterrupted. It was good.
So good.
We decided to make these little coffee dates a regular thing in our week. Saturday mornings.
I'm looking forward to it.
*photo taken by my friend Julie
