Baby Steps

God answered a prayer for me this morning.

I laid in bed last night praying and fumbled over my words.  I ended up getting my prayer journal out and wrote out my prayer instead.  Sometimes I need to do that because the devil fills my head with distractions.  Although God knows what I am trying to say even when I don't (Romans 8:26), I get frustrated with my prayers when they don't make sense.  I literally stopped what I was saying and hung my head.  I sighed and said, "Lord, I don't know what I want to say right now."  And I picked up my pen and paper and it flowed.

I asked for two specific things.  The first was for my husband to want to spend time with his kids as I feel like they have lost some importance on his hierarchy of priorities lately.  The second is more personal and I don't need to share it here.  It's between me, God and my husband (someday).

This morning, I asked him if he would like to go with the kids and I to a local festival.  He asked what time we were leaving and when I said 9:30 he hemmed and hawed and said probably not.  I said we could skip the first parade and just go to a later event at noon to see if he would go with us later.  He said sure, that the kids would like that (if he came with us).  I can't tell you how my heart leapt for joy!

It was short lived.  When I looked up the festival and found we had to pay to get in.  Boo!  So I mentioned it to him saying we would just not go and I would find something for the kids to do here at home.  Then without a beat he said, "Let's just go to the parade like we originally planned and then go out to lunch."  I think I glowed at this moment.  First, he said "we"!!!  That's huge!  He has not used "we", "our", "us" since this started two months ago.  Second, he purposefully made a point to do something with his family even though something got in the way of it.

I enjoyed the time together.  We were like a family for the first time in months.

It gets better....

I clean our floors almost every night now that the kids are playing outside all the time because they track in dirt and mud everywhere.  It's kind of become a routine of mine and I'm not too upset when the footprints appear every night.  I swept up the dirt, then using the sink in the bathroom for my "mop bucket", mopped the floor.  After the floors were clean, the sink was then filthy.  So I got out the bathroom cleaner and started cleaning the vanity.  My daughter walked in then and said, "Can I help?"  She grabbed the cleaner then started scrubbing the bathtub.  What is it with kids that they love to clean when you don't ask them, but when you do it's like pulling teeth?  The cleaning bug trickled down to my other kids and soon I had one in the bathtub, one doing dishes and one folding towels.  What?!

All while this was going on, my husband was watching TV...or something, I don't remember. It wasn't  important to me. It's my job to keep the house. (Proverbs 31:27)  And I'm happy to do it for the Lord.  But soon after my son got out the vacuum, he got up and started moving furniture around to help him get the dust bunnies behind them.  I sat back and watched after mopping the floors, cleaning the vanity, and scrubbing the toilet.  Not that he never does anything around the house, but it was a family effort and he wanted to be part of it.  I smiled.

Thank you, God, for baby steps.  I know you are moving here and I know that the other request I had for you last night will be answered too in your time.  Thank you so much for this day, the time with my family, the sunshine, the fun event we got to enjoy together.  Even though we were at each other's throats at times, we still had love among us.  These times together as a family are so far and few between lately that I treasure each one.  Thank you, thank you, Lord, for giving it to us.  Amen.