Sucking it up

Drive-thru registration was held on the 19th of this month.

The day started out overcast but our spirits weren’t! We had everything set up a little before 10am and by that time the kids had already watched 10 minutes of Veggie Tales, discovered the fountain, and were ready to go home.
Alas, there was no going home yet as we waited for our first mom to drive up. Many of our Steering Team members showed up, so in essence it ended up being a playgroup as well.
We watched our kids playing together and trying to work out problems dealing with sharing, taking turns, and invasion of personal space. Often time’s cries of “MOM!” could be heard throughout the church grounds as a preschooler ran to tell his/her mom about the latest atrocity. The most popular reply…”Sometimes you just have to suck it up.”

During the last week these words have been resonating in my mind.

How often in my life has God told me to “suck it up?”
I remember a time when my kids and I were out shopping. My son was 2 at the time and being difficult as ever. He kept running off, hiding in the racks, and touching things that he shouldn’t be touching. I was dead tired. My 2 month old daughter had been up several times the night before, and let’s face it, two kids is a lot more work than one.
Just as I’m chasing my son down for the umpteenth time I see a mother with two kids of her own. Her oldest looks about the same age as my son but with a huge difference; he was much better behaved. It was in that instant that my body sagged in defeat. Why couldn’t my kids be like hers? Am I such a terrible mother that my kids have turned into the kids that I used to see in stores when I was pregnant and swear that my kids wouldn’t behave like that?
As I was dancing it up at my pity party God shot the answer straight to my heart. Of course I’m not a terrible mother, nor do I have terrible kids. They are individuals just as He made them. Sure my son was running amok in the store but what I hadn’t noticed was just how much fun he was having; fun out with his mom and baby sister. He wasn’t trying to make me angry, he was just being himself; the same little boy that at night before bed time curls up in my lap and tells me he “wuvs me.”
So, when I’m out shopping with my now 3 and 1 year old, and they are BOTH running amok, hiding in the racks, and touching things they shouldn’t be touching; I just take a deep breath and say “Suck it up Tina, everything is how God intended.”

I hope you can join us for our 1st MOPS meeting of the season this Friday, October 3rd at 9:30am in Room 112 at the Church on the Hill.