After battling the flu/strep throat all weekend, today I was feeling more like myself. When I awoke this morning and surveyed my surroundings, much to my dismay, my house was in shambles. Apparently a tornado had gone through while I was in my sick/comatose state over the last three days! I straightened up and started some laundry. There were several loads of clothes that needed put away from last week, so I had the kids help. I asked them to put their own clothes away once they had finished their school for the day. Sounds reasonable, right? It’s not like I asked the girls to put away their brothers’ underwear or anything. Just put away YOUR clothes.
Ugh…the fighting. Not physical, but that kind of verbal battling only girls are capable of doing. On and on and on. About everything and nothing. Each daughter had to get the last word in, thus the ongoing arguing. Ignore the poor mama trying to speak correction over you with her still-raw throat. Bicker, bicker, bicker.
My girls went from delightful little creatures playing Littlest Pet Shop and Minecraft to the “Wicked Witches of the West” in under five minutes. All because I asked them to put away their own clothes. Geesh! Can’t a mom get a break around here?
As I sorted laundry, I could hear them through the laundry shoot from the second floor of the house all the way down to the basement. I just don’t get it. Everything is fine and dandy when they are playing and doing what THEY want to do, but the moment I ask them to do something they don’t want to do, the nasty comes out. Full blown brat attack. I mean, can’t they just help a mom out and be happy about it? *Cue the still small voice…
“Sometimes when I ask you to do something YOU don’t want to do, you act like that too, Susie.”
Who me? Nah…not ME.
“Yes, you.”
Oh man. I hate when I get called out on MY stuff.
Am I always a willing participant in the tasks God gives me to do? Do I go about serving others happily, as unto the Lord, for His glory? Am I a cheerful giver?
Sadly, the answer is sometimes, “No.” I DO complain and grumble, once in a while. I have, on occasion, toted a stinky attitude. And sometimes, just sometimes, I’m a “not-so-happy” giver. Guilty as charged.
The Bible says,
Do all things without complaining and disputing
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
susieamicone.com 