We have spent a lot of time this month dwelling on thankfulness in our home. We have our Thankful Tree with is growing number of Thankful-leaves. We have discussed the Pilgrims and the Indians. We have spent much time finding different verses in the Bible having to do with thankfulness.
Because of all this, I find my heart is more readily in a state of thankfulness as the days tick by. I find myself lifting up quick prayers of thanks much more frequently. I like this change. I intend to foster it in myself as well as encourage more of it in my children. It sets the tone for so much!
I could wax all poetic on you and sit here in my tired and slightly drugged state (oh, NiQu1l, I am thankful for you too!) typing out all manner of random, barely coherent bits of fluff that are slowly skittering through my mind, but I won't. I will share with you one of those things that I really don't think about very often, but due to one of my thankful arrow prayers, has been heavy on my heart today.
The kids were going the directions of the four winds this morning as Joshua and I flurried about trying to get everyone ready for church and get out the door. Even though I lay things out on Saturday nights, Sundays are more than a bit hairy around here. This morning, in particular, I was struggling to keep it together. At some point, the thought that I wasn't sure I could pull off getting all four children ready and out the door in time to go worship with our church family every week all by myself and I sure was glad that this parenting thing was a team sport.
I pulled up short almost immediately. Thoughts of single parents started pounding through my head. These ladies or men who parent a child or children without a helpmate. I very nearly cried for all those souls right there on the spot.
I can't imagine parenting alone. Not only is it the physical demands that children put on our lives (it is a fact, not a complaint), but the stress of not having that person to relax beside in the evenings and laugh over antics or things said. Or to hammer out a best course of action for this or that or the other with. The mental and emotional frustrations. And if the child and the parent are of opposite gender? Holy cow. That adds a whole new facet.
I shot up my prayer of thanks that the Lord has blessed me with a husband and our children with such a wonderful father and that He gives us each other to lean on in this full contact sport called Parenting. And then I prayed for all the single parents out there. But the thoughts haven't left me...I look at my husband with a renewed respect.
And I'm seeing single parents as super hero's! But even super hero's need help...I wonder where the Lord is taking me with this one...
2 comments:
I don't know, but thank you for your prayers during this hard, hard season in my life, friend.
I, like you, am grateful for my partner, and feel compelled to pray for single parents. They do have so many added challenges. Those single parents I know sometimes need a friend.....and someone who can listen and help in ways that a spouse would if he/she were there...Not sure where God will take you with this one.....but there is definitely a ministry there.....
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