Yesterday, I had another epic correction session with this beautiful mess.

I sat there holding her gently tight, rocking, and whispering “I love you.  I’m not hurting you. I love you enough to deal with your heart.  I love you. I love you. I love you.”  Meanwhile she flailed, screamed, writhed, wiggled, screamed some more and chanted: “Hurt me! Hurt me!  Momma! Hurt me!”

I was sitting in a warm puddle of pee that she’d let loose at the beginning of this tantrum.

For thirty minutes I sat in that pee, I rocked her, and I waited for her to wear herself out.  To come to the end of herself.  To accept that the correction in store for her was what she needed.

Midway through that session, while refuse dried sticky on my legs, I just began to weep.

How many times have I screamed, cried, and rejected the good gifts that Christ gives me because they weren’t gifts that I wanted?

Like my children, I want candy rather than meat and veggies.  Like my children, I want things easy and my way rather than slogging through my own sin during a bit of suffering (such miniscule suffering at that!).

How much Jesus loves me!  To stretch His arms around me and whisper “I love you” while I flail and scream and pee all over His good gifts, His good love.

Sometimes disciplining these little hearts is way more about correcting our own hearts than theirs.

Counting 3214-3240 gift He gives because I am His: regardless of my sinful or joyful reactions

• a glorious rain to help freshly girl-planted Lima beans grow
• Quiet morning with Sedryn and Derek
• how they’re learning names and occasionally call us “Derek and Bee-lissa!”
• Taking Bronwyn out on a date
• The proud way she handed over her coupon for ice cream and said please
• Her delighted “Tank you!”
• How she asked to sit in my lap to eat it
• How she protected a mint in her pocket for Aeralind all the way home
• Sharing the motherhood journey with Julia
• Tears
• Encouragement
• Long chat with Karen
• Loving the Little Years
• How proud Aerie was of watering the garden
• Gifts
• A looong long morning of disciplining
• Shepherding Group that night
• Rachel telling me how happy the girls made her with hugs and no-crying while she watched the SG kids
• How much I needed to hear that they could behave well
• Fun dino bibs
• Just doing life with Karen at TJ Maxx
• Finally going to a SG and really loving it
• Sedryn eating a grahm cracker stick
• How Aerie asks Daddy every night to “Climb Tah-rees!”
• Buying the girls giant water bottles the day before we decided to potty train Aeralind
• Derek making the remainder of the Pooh diapers disappear so she would be willing to train
• Encouraging Becky
• Laughter
• Growth
• Long discipline battles with B that show me my own sin
• Chatting with Carol
• Hearing Mandy share her hear
• Crock-pot smells all over the house
• Quiet early mornings with the little guy
• Mandy getting Sedryn’s first laugh
• Derek’s cocky little smile when he said he felt good about this interview
• Dr. Whitehead’s Pooh tie enthralling the girls