nerf ball grace epiphanies...

two hours. shopping for thanksgiving week food and thanksgiving dinner for ten people.

i promised the boys a treat if they were SUPER helpful....with a few bumps in the trip from the whiny little one, they were quite helpful. once at checkout, i got them a nerf football to throw in the yard.

we came home.

they fought over it in 5 minutes.

looking out the window i thought to myself..."i should have gotten them each a ball and then they wouldn't have to fight at all. they could just each have their own...."

no.

ahhhh, right. God i get it. i see....

learning to share is ha-ard. love is hard. sharing is hard. but the lesson and the cost comes in the sharing and giving up our little kingdom for His kingdom......which means loving others is hard because it's anti-us. and that anti-us hurts our comfort. because those boys FOR NOW would love to each have their own ball. and not have to worry about taking turns or sharing that silly foam ball. yet, down the road, they'd learn never to serve the other...if they each had their ball, they'd be on opposite sides of the yard, keeping to themselves. no throwing or tossing back and forth. no game playing. just holding it to oneself or tossing it alone to yourself.




how boring. how ridiculously boring. that's not what that game was meant for. it's a team sport.

you can't enjoy the game of football if you're each in your own corner holding your ball. it must be a give and take and back and forth.

how silly and sad that would look? each boy hoarding his own ball in the yard just waiting for the other to do something?....yet, we don't see that in our relationships do we? when we are figuratively doing the same?

i immediately thought of marriage...my own marriage. and what that looked like if we never had to learn "to share the football"...each having our own and never having to learn to give up self for the other....it would be SO much easier.  it would. but not as sweet. and not as Loving. and not as heart changing.....and not as Him-centered.

may i LONG to see the sweet life lessons in sharing and teach them to our children.. and let them be long lasting and not run to the temporary fix to avoid conflict which is what i want to do in the moment, always...but help me, Lord, to know better and do better and love better and share better.

this momma would gladly go back and get a second ball for those boys. if it meant i knew the fighting would stop. but i know THAT would not be loving at all....that would just be masking the deeper heart problem.....ouch..

all's grace.....