A few years ago we were at my nephew’s birthday party. Per tradition said nephew had a piñata at his party. Typically, each child at the party takes a turn at hitting the piñata with the bat and then allows the next child in line to take a swat. This repetition continues until the force of said youngsters (and some anxious male adults) finally creates a weak point in the piñata and the candy falls out.
But for a certain child that I gave birth to, the hitting didn’t stop there. After all of the candy had been collected by accumulated children present, my child gathered the bat in his precious god-given hands and began to beat the piñata (Elmo, I believe) to a pulp, loudly proclaiming, “Obey!”
Among the proper adults present at the little birthday party, this brought out a number of stifled giggles. However, it brought out a rather nervous laugh from my gut. I thought about remarking that he was adopted. Or he had watched a TV show at someone house. Or . . . I actually was speechless. More like embarrassed. Umm . . . I have never beaten my child, but yet there he was taking a switch to Elmo-- commanding him to obey.
Ahh . . . the joys of motherhood.
But today brought about a good lesson in obedience. One that I hope my children will model as they age. There can be blessings as a result of obedience . . . and I tried to explain that to them today.
A few weeks ago my bloggy friend, Conny, wrote about how she and her husband had began their month using the envelope system. If you aren’t familiar with this, Dave Ramsey and Crown Financial Ministries advocate paying in cash for most everything. Now, we have always spent within our means, always making sure to stay out of debt by paying our bills when they are due. That is how both of our parents raised us and it is good stewardship of our resources that the Lord has given us.
Anyway, I was encouraged that Conny had just embarked on this journey and blogged about it, because for the zillionth time, we were also reverting back to this ancient practice of using money versus plastic.
I’ve been kind of giddy about it.
Well, today we decided to meet our friends at the mall. The boys and I had been out running errands, and we had planned on having a play date with Nicole and her brood. The mall was a great location to grab lunch and allow the kids to run around like crazy while it rained outside.
Now, I knew that I only had $10 left in the family date budget. $10 would only cover three kids meals at Chick-Fil-A, not a mommy meal. I was fine with that. I readily committed to our new budget and was excited by my diligence to follow through with it. I figured that some little boys would be so excited about playing with their friends, that they wouldn’t finish all of their lunch. There was a little bit of food left over. Not a lot, but a little. Being hungry didn’t mean that I would die . . . I would just be hungry until we got home.
So, everyone had lunch and I had water. I was quite pleased with my obedience. I wasn’t being a martyr. I had simply purposed ahead to stick to the plan. I was excited about it.
Well, after lunch, Nicole supposedly had to go get a “refill.” It seemed to me that it was taking an awful long time to get her “drink.”
She didn’t get a drink. She got me a sandwich.
Now wasn’t that neat? I obeyed and got blessed. She obeyed and blessed me . . . but she got to have fun giving. (She also remarked that the baby had to eat.) And that makes me want to do that the next time I have a chance, give that is—not eat!
Neat.
Thanks, Nicole!
