There are times as a parent (and I still hesitate to call myself that. It has been such a short time), that you wonder if you are doing anything right. I wonder that a lot and I rarely think that I do things well. Sometimes I have "good" days but they are few and far between. That's why I'm glad that God redeems in spite of us.
Turi has been reaching teenage-hood. (Is that a word?) There seem to be a lot of emotional roller coasters in our home these days. I knew constantly being annoyed at my mom from about 13-18 yrs. old would come back to haunt me one day.
This particular evening, I asked her to do an extra chore (cleaning up a spot of juice on the floor) and you could see the irritation on her face. I told her just to go downstairs and get ready for bed and I did all her chores in her place. As I was getting Bitsu, Tihi and Carmen ready for bed, I asked God what to do. He told me to talk to her. I was tired and thought to leave it for the morning. He told me to talk to her. I put all the kids down, including Turi, and left and started cleaning up the office. He told me to talk to her. So, I did.
We had a great talk in which I told the story of the prodigal son and we talked about which brother we were (we are both the older brother, in case you couldn't tell). In the end, she hugged me and said, "I am so glad that you adopted me. I think about it a lot. I think, 'Out of all those kids in that orphanage, you chose me.'"
I love that God works in spite of us.
tears welling up in my eyes... thanks for sharing your moment of thinking yourself a bad parent. yup, just the fact that you want to have the juice spot clean is a good sign, lol. but yea, god is redemptive.
ReplyDeleteI'm tearing up a bit too. This only makes me want to adopt even more than I already do. It's inspiring and such beautiful imagery of how God adopted us and chose us to be His children.
ReplyDeleteI had the same response as the first two commenters - watery eyes. How precious!
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you recorded the moment in writing, too. Memories do fade with time (and number of children) and that is a beautiful one to hang on to!