Today was just one of those days. It started out this morning when Hannah started asking to come to our bed very early. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night, so I was very anxious that if she were to come, that she be real quiet so as not to wake up the other two sleeping babies who were already in our bed. Well…she wasn’t quiet, and pretty soon Jabez started demanding his bottle. Now I was getting worried…if they woke up Destiny, my sleep would be at a complete end for the day. (I have too many kids to even dream of taking a nap) Sure enough, Destiny woke up due to the incessant howling of the other two. Hannah is NOT a morning person, and she is often terribly grumpy when she wakes up. That was just the start of the day, there was more to come.

I was able to get Hannah and Jabez occupied having their breakfasts, or rather, I delegated others to do that part while I fed Destiny and had my worship. This week, all of my worships have been on the importance of our speech, especially in the home. We are never supposed to be impatient or harsh in our speech. Now I don’t know about you, but that is really hard for me. Probably the hardest thing for me to be patient about is needless crying. I think that God must love me a lot, since He gave me a whole day to practice that concept!

It wasn’t long after worship that Memewah came and brought me Jabez. I was still in my room, trying to get ready for the day. So, I put Jabez down for his morning nap, got Destiny up from her nap, and cleaned the room. Then I thought of a thousand things that I needed to do before Jabez woke up, so I left Destiny in Roy’s capable hands and went racing around trying to get everything done. When I went back to check to see if Jabez were awake yet, I was met by one happy little boy, sitting in the middle of a disaster area. Really. I am sure that if the president had seen it I could have gotten emergency aid money! I have beside my bed a little basket full of all kinds of neat stuff, and he had checked out everything. Then, he found the canisters of dry baby milk powder, and had opened that up and dumped it all over my bible, bed, books, pencils, pens, baby stuff, etc….Somewhere along the way he had managed to add some water to the mix and was busy eating baby milk powder off of his dirty little legs. He smiled a huge smile at me, as if to tell me that this was definitely on his list of the top 10 favorite things to do! I didn’t have the heart to scold him, and besides, I had just finished reading how you are not supposed to scold, but be firm and kind. So, while I held him at arms length on my way to add him to Roy’s collection of babies, I kindly told him that although he was having fun, I was not.

I wish that I could describe the rest of the day. All I can say is that I believe that the three babies, along with the older kids, had a counsel of war early that morning. When one would stop crying, as if on cue, another one would start in. When one was finished getting into something, another one would start. I had to do battle with impatient feelings all day long! I have to admit that sometimes I utterly failed, but then a lot of other times I would remember on time and maintain my patient, firm discipline. I never had a harder job in my life! No, not with the kids, but with learning to be as Jesus wants me to be. It is far harder to control myself than it is to control all of them. (You can always sit them in the corner and wait for the wailing to stop, but you can’t do that with your mind)

Your problem might not be impatience, but I bet you have something that God is asking you to work on also so that you can get ready for heaven. We don’t have much time left, so let’s welcome those hard days that make us feel our total helplessness, and rely on God and His ability to save us from ourselves.