Late last night little Clara woke up in an absolute panic, crying and screaming, I went into her room to find out what the problem was. Through sobs she told me that her underwear was on wrong (not the emergency situation that I was anticipating) so I told her we could fix it and everything would be alright. Upon inspection I discovered that there was nothing wrong with her underwear – all the legs were in the correct leg-holes and whatnot, so I told her it wasn’t on wrong, it looked just right – to which she sobbed, “ITS ON BACKWARDS MOMMY! I CANT SEE ELSA!!” (There’s a picture of Elsa from Frozen on the front – but since it was dark in her room she couldn’t see it.) Unfortunately it’s impossible to reason with a three-year old, let alone a frantic, distressed, half-asleep three-year old. So I told Clara we could pray about it.
I prayed for Clara, “Jesus, thank you for underwear. Thank you that Clara is getting so good at putting her underwear on right. Thank you that her underwear isn’t on backwards right now and that when the sun comes up she will be able to see the Elsa picture again. Please help her not be sad and help her go back to sleep so she can have a great day tomorrow. Amen”
Clara felt much better knowing that God cared about her underwear situation and fell right back to sleep.
I love that God cares for us so much that He want’s to hear us call out to Him for every need – even those that seem small and insignificant, and He wants us to THANK Him and have grateful hearts for ALL the gifts that He’s given… including underwear. For some reason I’m much better at spontaneously thanking God when I’m in “mom mode” and I want to show my kids that they can talk to Jesus whenever they want, about whatever they want, day or night.
Last night as I was sleepily trudging back to my bed after praying with Clara I realized how easy it’s been for me to outgrow my natural inclination to thank God and include him in the craziness of my day-to-day routine. I want to be better at acknowledging God as the giver of every good gift and expressing appreciation to Him for those gifts.
I’ve been studying the book Choosing Gratitude but Nancy Leigh DeMoss with my SideBySide group here in Grand Rapids. Our group has been discussing how to work gratefulness into our lives everyday. Ephesians 5:20 tells us to give thanks to God for everything. EVERYTHING! Even the little things that we often overlook – and when it comes down to it, I really am grateful for underwear.
P.S. SideBySide has been an absolute gift from God to me in the past 4 years. If you know the wife of a medical or dental student, resident, fellow, or attending you should let them know there might be a group in their city! You can connect them with me and I’ll help them find a group or you can look on the CMDA website for more info.
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