Who Is My Baby's Daddy?

I had very un-Christ like thoughts today. My sister-in-law invited the kids & I to go to the children's museum with her & my niece & nephew. Thursday nite is family free nite (commoner nite). I had a bad feeling about it going into it, but I didn't want to be the spoil-sport. At first it wasn't so bad; the crowd wasn't too dense & I could still see my children. Then it became like that Star Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles". The place was so thick with the general public I thought I had descended into the bowels of hell. When I asked the docent if it was usually this crowded on Thursday nites, her response to me was, "No, normally we only bus in 6-8 buses, tonite there were 12 buses." From whence do these people come? The free part of the nite imploded because the only way I could pry my children out of there and away from the face-painting station was to coerce them with the offer of a Happy Meal. It just serves to remind me that nothing in this life is really free.

This morning my 4 year old daughter and I were on our way to breakfast and while we are driving she laments that she still has not found a boyfriend. Her preschool class is an integration of pre-K 3's (her class) and pre-K 4's and I blame those racey older kids for filling her head with match-making thoughts (pre-K 4's are notoriously flirtaceous, whorish almost). Horrified that my 4 year old daughter might already be thinking that she needs a 4 year old boy to make her whole, I remind her of her beauty and her intelligence and reassure her that when the time comes,she will have her pick of boyfriends. And I point out how much God and her daddy and her brothers love her. She is still worried, but not so much about the boyfriend as to her future breeding potential. "But mommy, if I don't find a boyfriend, who is going to be my daddy?" By this, she means who will father her theoretical children? I just birthed this child myself and she is already thinking about when she is going to be a mommy. It was almost more precious than I could stand. I'm not sure what I said to make her believe that she need not worry, but as quickly as the subject comes up, it goes away. I did tell her that I am already praying for her and her brothers' future mates. With a conversation like that this morning, it is never too early to start praying.

I am learning a lot about forgiveness right now. Mostly that it is a choice rather than a feeling or emotion. It's an act of will and when you decide to forgive, you have to reign in bitterness and miscontent. Earlier this week I read an exerpt from Streams in the Desert by Mrs Charles Cowman "If we remain groveling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief."

Isaiah 61:10 "I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!..."