God's blessings of encouragement

The last few days at home with the boys have been a nightmare!  They have been extremely naughty, disrespectful, and disobedient.  I have spent most of the day dealing out time outs, spankings, and tears.  I have also spent the days on my knees praying for each of my sons with my arms wrapped around them.  I know they are little, they are boys, but they still need to learn to obey.  I have been trying to Praise the Lord for these "stretching days" (as I like to call them, because they stretch me beyond my limits and leave my heart aching after) as they are necessary to mold them into the boys God has created them to be. That doesn't mean I don't need to vent about it a little or that I don't enjoy it! I have been selfishly praying the Lord would give me just a glimmer of hope in the next few days that I am in fact doing the right thing.

Today I was planning on a playdate with a coworker but she had something come up and we rescheduled. In light of our change in plans, I decided to get my workout in this morning instead of late tonight.  The boys are usually well behaved at the daycare at Center Court, but I didn't think much of it until today.  I dropped them off and used the time during my workout to pray, praise, and prepare for the rest of the day.  I felt refreshed when I picked them up ready to put on my motherly armor and take whatever they did or didn't do. 

When I went in to pick them up, one of the daycare workers said to me, "I don't know if I have told you this before, but...  (just to let you know at this point I was sweating more than I had in my workout not wanting to hear more terrible things that they had done)... your boys are so good!"  

"What?" I said. "Are you talking about these two boys (pointing to Jonah and Elijah)."

"Yes," she laughed and continued, "they are so kind, respectful, helpful, and have such excellent manners." 

I am still in shock at this point.

She went on to say how impressed she was with them and she hasn't seen two little boys so well behaved before!  She also said they play well with the other kids and are always sharing their snack. She said "I don't know what you are doing, but keep it up."

Wow. Thank you Lord!  This isn't a post to brag about how great my kids are, because if you read the above post you obviously know they are far from "angels" but to give praise to God for being faithful and encouraging. 

I won't tell you what my "wonderfully behaved" children did when we got home while I was making lunch, but I will say that they sure keep life exciting!