life in shambles

Mary Poppins: ultimate nanny

There is a little girl I have the privilege of babysitting once a week who I refer to (here) as Adorable A.


The meaning behind the name is that she is over-the-top adorable. Someday I'll remember to ask her parents if I can post pictures of her here. You'll enjoy her face.


Today, we were playing kitchen together. She has a little plastic pot that makes bubbling sounds when you set it on the little plastic stovetop. She also has lots of plastic measuring cups and drinking cups and baby bottles. 


At one point during our afternoon together, Adorable A. decided that the bottle needed to be in the cup and the cup needed to be in the little grocery basket. Once this was completed, she went shopping. Everything seemed fine. She was smiling between two chubby cheeks and all was well in the world.


Until she bumped into the armchair. And tripped. And the basket went flying. The cup came out of the basket, the bottle came out of the cup. Her life was in shambles.


Everything she had worked for-dashed to pieces! Everything she had put her hope in-lost! Her precious basket of goods-now scattered across the living room floor.


In this moment (the one just before I jumped up to comfort her) I learned something from Adorable A. 


So often, we see our lives as very safe things we hold in our hands. We have our relationships here, our job here, our future grasped tightly here. And then we trip. 


And when we do, everything comes crashing down. Everything is falling apart. Our lives are in shambles. Or so it would seem.


Yet, from the chair from where I watched this happen, it looked humorous. Why was that basket, cup and bottle so important to A.? And why was she so upset when she dropped it? Didn't she see how simple this all was? Didn't she see how everything but that one little basket was being held together?


But she didn't. She couldn't. She was wrapped up in it. 


I got up from my chair and quickly popped the bottle back into the cup and dropped the cup back into the basket. Adoarble A. was elated. And moved on with her life. And completely forgot about the traumatic incident of 2012.


But I kept thinking about it. how there is someone so much bigger and wiser than I am watching over me. About how small my life and the things within my life really are. About how easy it is for God to just step in and change everything. About the power I underestimate when I should be hoping in it. 

John 1:16 "And from His fulness we have received." 

Spurgeon on the above verse:

"Come, believer, and get all your need supplied; ask largely, and you will receive largely, for this "fulness" in inexhaustible and is treasured up where all the needy may reach it, even in Jesus, Immanuel-God with us." 

1094. lessons from babies

1095. a productive day

1096. seeing friends

1097. surprise party

1098. a desk

1099. a filing cabinet

1100. a new place for Posy and Thimble

1101. an extra hour of sleep

1102. pretty weather

1103. a new hat

1104. boring meeting-canceled!

1105. a raise

1106. piling onto the couch with the family, watching movies

1107. music and delicious smells currently coming from the kitchen

1108. Eliza's promised visit!