My lessons began early this morning and what I love most about how God chooses to teach me is that He always brings circumstances in full circle. If you know about my ‘conversion’ moment then you know that it was my son, Ryan, that God used to ‘wake me up’ to my awful reality. I also realize that his twin, (the vanishing twin I lost very early in the pregnancy) was also a ‘helper’ in getting me on the paved track of my life journey. So, this morning I went to wake up this hormonal pubescent young man to let him know that I had to take his younger brother to tennis practice. He looked up from his bed and smiled and said, “OK, Mom.” When I turned to leave I heard this awful screeching sound coming from the Wii player that we keep in his room. A few days before I had heard the same noise and asked what it was and Ryan and Seth both told me to turn it off, that it was the disk in the machine. Remembering this I walked over and as I reached over to turn it off Ryan cried out, “No, Mom, don’t!” But he was too late. I had turned it off. 🙁 I knew then that apparently he had on of his games that he has to get to certain levels before he can save them. Being the mom that I am, I only allow so much time on the game system and make them turn it off no matter if they have reached that point or not. He had turned off the TV but not the Wii. He lost all the ‘work’ he had done.
I was ready to hear “MOM!!!” followed by a great deal of crying and whining. However, he just looked at me with unbelief and then said, “Oh, Mom” so soft like he just couldn’t believe it. I told him I was sorry and I truly felt bad. He said, “It’s OK, just go.”
I’m sure you are wondering why this is HUGE to me? First, because if it were ME I probably would have been mad! I would have gotten upset with me and frustrated because I couldn’t get it back. I know how I react and it wasn’t the calm way he chose to react. Second, Ryan was diagnosed with Impulsivity Disorder as a young child and use to react so bad to things that I was ostracized by friends! This reaction showed none of that behavior. It was mature. I made sure I told him how proud I was of his mature behavior and that I knew many adults that didn’t have it in them to behave this way. Later when I took him to his Japanese teacher so that she could take him on a Japanese field trip to some stores in Houston she made a comment to me about letting him eat his own ‘American’ food if he didn’t want to try the Japanese food. He instantly said, “No! I want to try everything Japanese.” This is my same kid that won’t eat green beans without gagging!!!
When I left him it was so clear to me how selfish my own reactions continue to be at times. It was an early wake up call.
My second lesson reinforced the first. I had just walked out of Target with items purchased and I was loading them into the car when I realized that I had never put a package of toothpaste up on the conveyor belt. It was still in my cart. My first thought was ‘Ugh, it’s like one of those ‘What Would You Do’ shows!!’ My second thought was, “If I don’t take it back and pay for it, I’ll have to talk about it in confession…UGH how awful.” So, as I grabbed it and took it back in to pay for it I thought about letting them know what I had accidentally done but then it dawned on me that if I did that wouldn’t that be boasting of my ‘truthful deed’? So I just walked up and paid for a random tube of toothpaste. 😉
My third lesson came from Seth. I had picked him up from his camp/lesson after Target and when he got in the car and we were driving home he was looking at his surroundings and he said, “Mom, I’m so thankful that we live near Town Center. And I am so thankful for our house. God gave me a lot of blessings, didn’t He?” Awesome! I agreed with him and we began to list all the ‘blessings’ we had in our life.
It was a very cool day to have God reach down and give me such a BIG HUG!! 🙂 Not to mention that I saw the 10:10am, 11:11am, 12:12pm and 1:11pm! Thank you God and my guardian angels.
Blessings
Shannon