I
am sitting on a couch in a house i call “the glass house.” it belongs
to a family that i nanny for and they have 2 beautiful kids. tonight was
a sleepover, in which i had not 2 but 4 kids… all under the age of 5.
it is 1035, and i have been here since 330… a little over 7 hours.
At
this point in the night, i am sitting surfing the web and facebook and
checking emails, so tired from College Weekend and a busy week, while
little people dream upstairs.
I walked into the house today finding
the house completely wrecked… the wife of the home is touring china
for two week and the husband works a lot… a pregnant nanny is here
during the day, and was here when i got here… once i arrived she gave
me the car keys, and left me with these 4 kids. they started screaming
“i want a snack,” “he hit me,” and my favorite of the whole night, “when
are you gonna have a baby.” I proceeded to step into mom shoes….they
ran to my legs wrapping little arms and hands around me. I picked them
up and kissed them and hugged them. I fed them, chased them, played
games with them, watched 3 movies with them, made dinner, cooked,
cleaned up messes, did laundry, gave 4 baths to (one for the boys, one
for the girls), kissed and snuggled, then chased them upstairs to make a
fort for the boys to sleep in and a big bed for the girls to be tucked
in. I chased naked little bodies around and once i caught them and
dressed them, I tucked them in. I prayed with them, and they said to
pray to Mary, i said no and kept going haha. I get to discipline them
when they are bad and it looks like this: she scratched his face, he
shoved her head…both cried and so i made them sit in two chairs facing
each other for 3 minutes… then one got up before the timer so his
timeout was longer…she cried because his timeout was longer than
hers…so she sat back down…timer goes off, both come say sorry to me
and to each other, snuggle up next to me to watch dora the
explorer…great ha…this is easy 🙂
Phoenix and Ella. He is 5
and she is 3. I absolutely love these kids. I guess having been one of
six kids, little people just amaze me and I love them.
Ella is
full of questions. “where does God live?” “Can i see angels?” “When are
you gonna have a baby?” the list goes on. I found myself for the first
real time ever, seeing and witnessing a perfect example of childlike
faith. I led this same little girl to the Lord the other night when i
was babysitting. I prayed with her and told her that all the angels were
so excited that she accepted Jesus into her heart and they were smiling
so big. She then asked, “I wanna see God and i wanna see angels.” I
proceeded to say, well God will show himself if you just ask… not
thinking that she would really…ask right then. “God, I wanna see
angels…and you.” Through her little lips, her sweet innocent little
voice said this with eyes closed. She opened them and looked around, but
saw nothing. She looked at me and said, “why cant i see them, i just
asked Him.” My heart, for the first time, saw that when she said that
right then, her heart had been expectant. I really believe that the
reason we didnt see an angel was not because of her lack of faith, but
mine. Here was a 3year old little girl who just challenged me to step it
up in my faith. It made me ask, “Can i go to God and ask him one
question with the faith to expect it?” I want to say yes everytime…but
i dont.
I heard little whimpering around 10 tonight… 2.5 hours
after i put them to bed….I waited until i knew for sure it was
crying, even though it was so faint. i tiptoed upstairs so as not to
wake the other 3 kids, to find her laying awake rubbing her sweet little
eyes. I laid down next to her and held her close. I dont know why, but
there was so much joy in that. Knowing that she felt safe in my arms and
all she had to do was whimper, cry just enough for me to hear and i
could come. Immediately I thought, thats what it looks like with us and
Jesus… Jesus longs for us to whimper or cry out to him, the lover of
our entire being because he wants to hold us so close… so close that
we just rest there. Ella had been having dreams of monsters, and when i
just held her in my arms in response to her whimpers, she just fell
right back to sleep, with a smile on her face…i tiptoed out, and
looked back ar her, to see her sleeping with the smile remaining the
same. I was amazed and still am. By kids, yes. But more so, by my God.
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