New Rug = Tender Mercy

We started out the day with two little sets of hands dumping their entire bowl full of cheerios on to the floor.  Cleaning up wet cheerios that happened to land on CARPET isn't really my idea of a tender mercy from the Lord.  Neither is my daughter dumping a Costco sized bag full of pretzels onto my kitchen floor. Yes this happened in the same day, in fact within an hour from each other. And the bag was full.

My house seems to always be in chaos.  I'm not exaggerating. When I say always,  I mean always.  My house also always smells like poop.  Its nothing but poopy, noisy chaos.  With all this going on, how in the world do I even try to prepare a talk for a little boy's baptism? I was asked to give a talk at one of my Primary kids baptism tonight and all day I was so very close to calling his mother and telling her I was sick,  (Sick in the head)  and would not be able to do as I had promised.

Well its about an hour before the baptism and I am trying to get myself ready and three kids ready.  Out of nowhere all three decide to have melt downs at the exact same time, for no apparent reason.  I was kneeling on my new rug, changing Jagger when I decided why not join in?

So there I kneel in the middle of the floor, bent over my ottoman and a FEW of the tears that I have been holding back for weeks started to finally flow.   The only thought that flows through my heart is "God, I can't do this alone, I need your help".  Its the only thing I can say and no joke, my kids start quieting down.  I grab Jagger and hold him in my lap and continue to cry.  Then McKoy slides his way into my arms and just lays his head on my knees as I continue to cry.   Paisley then walks in the room, comes up behind me, wraps her arms around my neck, leans up on her tip toes and reaches around so she can kiss me on the cheek.  Yes, I am still crying.  At this point she breaks away, comes and stands in front of me and gives me a kiss on the lips and then goes back to wrapping her arms around my neck.

I won't ever forget these few minutes, this "Tender Mercy" where I was holding all three of my babies, and it was ME that was having a meltdown and they were the ones staying calm and quiet.

So much has taken place in this little rented living space of ours, the living room in particular.  This room has been where most of the fighting,rough housing, the yelling, the spills, the drawing on the walls, the carpet and the bathroom accidents have all taken place.  But today this was the room where the Mom cried like the baby and the three babies acted like the adult.

In reality, they were the ones holding me.  On my new rug. Such a tender mercy.