God in the situation

So I lost at parenting tonight. I was winning all day, doing and saying all the right things to my kids (except for when Jayne sat on Lincoln while he made the most annoying sounds ever to pass a 7 year old's lips all while I was trying to respond to some emails. That was maybe not a winning moment for me...but other than that, all good mommying things!)

And then late night hit, followed by the drama of an overly-tired daughter and a mom who was done with her day 2 hours earlier. (Seriously, I thought she was asleep and I had already gone into "non-functioning mom" mode.) I did not handle this well. 

And the stupid thing is that I was actually trying! It's not like I got so angry that I was speaking purely from emotion. I just couldn't bring the wisdom or the right words of comfort to handle this drama. I have struggled with drama (as in I dislike it greatly) since I was a kid so it's funny, ironic, I suppose, that my daughter lives a highly dramatic life. 

Finally, after trying to calm my daughter with my words of wisdom that were pretty much just making the situation worse, I started talking about our great big God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine. He is our protector, our healer, our guardian who gives us courage. 

And, of course, shortly after bringing God into the situation, she mellowed out and fell asleep.

And, of course, there's a moral in the story for me too (because God's always trying to teach me something through this blog): how many worries, how many stresses, how much wasted time fretting about anxieties, how much fear am I going to allow in my life before I realize that I need to bring a God into the situation a lot sooner? 

Tonight I guess I'm grateful for my parenting fail because it brought our focus, both Jayne's and mine, to where it was supposed to be: on our Father. 

KC