He's Better at This Than I Am

Catie got a beautiful baby doll for her birthday from her Grammie Herzog. She has soft, auburn hair, an adorable face, and a soft body that simulates the weight of a real newborn. Catie adores her. And, she tries to be a good mommy. She often gives her baby a "bath" with a wet wipe. She holds her close and smothers her with kisses. I've even seen her trying to teach the baby things, like Saturday morning when she held Baby's arm high and helped Baby pop the bubbles that I was blowing. It's moments like this when I get a warm fuzzy about what my daughter is learning from me about being a good mom.

But, even though Catie plays with her baby more than any other toy, more often than not, Baby often looks like she does in the picture above, alone, forgotten, and dirty. You see, as much as she loves Baby, she still drops her pretty often in the dirty garage and she gets distracted by toys and her brother and a million other things.

I've struggled lately, as I know many mothers of 2 year-olds do, with discipline, and I often wonder if I'm doing it right. When Nick scared his friend on Monday with his over-exuberant "No, no, no" when she wasn't doing anything wrong, it made me pause and wonder if that's what he thinks I'm doing. He doesn't understand why I'm saying no all the time either. But, I press on, because I am the mom and I know what is best.

Sometimes, I treat God as if He is a parent like Catie. He loves me, but he has other distractions that take up His time and sometimes I get left on the dirty floor in the garage. Like Nick, I fail to see that He knows what is best for me.

He isn't leaving me on the floor in the garage. He is standing there saying, "What are you doing on that dirty floor? Get up and hold on to my hand. I know exactly where we're going and I have something planned for you that you can't even imagine."

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:1-3