As some of you know, I babysit my neighbor's daughter pretty much full time. And most days here lately, it has just been overwhelming. Not that this baby is such a pain, it's just one more drain on me and my time and my time with my kids. Trying to balance homeschooling, other activities, three kids, not to mention attempting to keep a clean (okay, the appearance of clean) house has been frustrating.
However in the past week I have noticed that my older two are picking up on my negative vibes toward the whole babysitting-thing. It's taken me a few days to feel convicted about this, but I do now. We've had a few days off from having the baby and it has been so nice.
But today we had her back and I was determined to set the attitude off for the day in the right direction. When the kids responded with a chorus of "oh not J" when I told them she would be over right away, I reminded them that baby doesn't get the chance to learn much about Jesus at her house and that this was a chance we had to share Jesus' love with her. Immediately after my little sermon-ette, I got tested. The phone rings it's the baby's mom, apparently she over-slept and is now running late. I felt my blood beginning to boil, all of my kids slept in today, but because I knew that she'd be over right away, I forced my tired body out of bed and got going much earlier than I wanted to! After a stern self-talk and a quick sarcastic "must be nice" to myself I moved on!
So now as I type, I can hear a chorus of "love your neighbor" (from Veggie tales) being sung to our little guest. God is good. He can even work through a sleep-deprived, frustrated mama!
2 comments:
Gosh, Sarah, how maddening! I am glad to hear about your attitude change, but it must be so hard!! I hope the rest of the week is better.
overslept? what's oversleeping? :) i can't remember the last time i got to sleep in. it's like the only opportunities i have to sleep later i have to get up early with a baby or someone else wakes up puking or something! m & l would gladly sleep in for me, but those little'uns are up and at 'em early! which is a whole lot worse right now since it's so stinkin' dark in the mornings!
but isn't awesome how God uses our children to convict us? (at least afterwards it's neat... at the time it can be frustrating!) it's humbling, that's for sure.
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