While I was folding laundry for my son's band camp trip, Camryn, age 6, had helped herself to a bowl of grapes. My kids know that fruits are always allowed for snacking and I try to keep some on hand that they can grab and eat. Annika, age 2, wanted to be exactly like her big sister and wanted grapes too. I was in a hurry, like a mama making sure her kid had clean underwear for a week and was leaving in 30 minutes hurry. I knew that I couldn't just ask Camryn to give her sister a bowl of grapes. Grapes must be cut up for Annika because she's only two and this mama has choking kids on the top of her panic list. But I didn't have a lot of time to stop and cut them either.
Honestly, I tried to ignore her but she was whining, and then crying, and then throwing a real fit. I stopped the laundry, went to the kitchen, grabbed the grapes, two plates, and a knife. Once Annika saw the knife she started screaming again. She wanted grapes right then, exactly the same way her sister had grapes- in a bowl, not cut. I had recently watched this really cool video on FB of a guy cutting grapes with such ease. He placed them between two plates and slid a knife carefully through all of them at once. Yeah, didn't work for me. She's crying, I'm frustrated, it's a mess.
I get them cut up and hand them to her on the plate. She looks at them and screams again. "Not like them that" "Not like them that" is what she's saying in her high-pitched, crying voice. At this point, I walked away. She's crying, grapes are sitting there, I left.
Twenty minutes later I am finished helping my boy; he's leaving. "Bye mom" and a quick hug. I come back through the kitchen and she's happily sitting there eating her grapes. The same grapes she didn't want cut up, the same grapes she screamed should would not like.
Right there I was convicted. I am that little, crying, sounding ridiculous kid to my Abba Father. I see something I think I have to have right then and I have a fit. Thankfully my fits aren't usually in public or with such drama but on the inside of me they are pretty much just like a two-year old. But He knows best and maybe He says "it's good for them but it wouldn't be good for you in the same way". Maybe He just wants me to wait on His timing. And many times the very thing that I want may have been right in front of me and I refused to have faith. After all, cut up grapes taste the same as whole grapes. She just needed to grab hold of them to find out.
Considering the grapes, I have thought about my present situation a lot today. I have to be honest that this month is a scary place. I have no source of income. Our "on paper" money has been cut in half. God knows that my heart is to serve my family and families in my path in a very real and tangible way. He gave me those desires. He gave me a past that points directly to helping others survive poverty, cut expenses, get out of debt, and/or worry less about things and more about people. How will I know what that looks like? It's so easy for me to look at what others are doing and want my life story to look like theirs. It's easy for me to demand that God show me right now how all of this is going to turn out. It's easy for me not to see the good right in front of my face. Please, oh Lord, help me to be your servant, with your eyes! May I grab hold of your goodness, your love, your grace, and your mercy hour by hour as you show me the way!
