I Want Everything I Want! (Lessons from my 4 Year old about Gratitude)
Our family trip to Target for diapers and a wifi modem
turned out to be mini revelation for me that I just had to share with y'all! My
life was yet again reflected back to me through the perspective of a four year
old. Within minutes of arriving, my son already had it in his head he was
getting a toy. For the life of me, I don’t know why sometimes he’s 100% fine
with not getting a toy and other Target trips he just gets it in his head that is
the way it will be. Today was one of those days. It also happened to be one of
those days that no matter what logic you try to pour into his head about
getting over the disappointment; he was not going to stop bawling his eyes out.
So I gave my husband the look and said, “We will be outside.” I grabbed my
son’s hand and calmly walked him outside turning every head in Target toward
our direction. There we sat on a flowerbed ledge where I let my boy cry his
eyes out. Our conversation went a little like this…
Me: Sweetheart, I know you are disappointed that you don’t
get a toy this time. But Dadddy and Mommy aren’t going to get you everything
you want all the time.
Desmond: But I want everything I want!!! I just wanted a
little toy! Just one toy!
Me: Yeah baby, I hear you. I want all the things I want too,
and it makes me feel frustrated when I don’t get things I want. But do you know
what I do to help?
Desmond: What?
Me: I think of all the things that I do have and I think
about how thankful I am for those things. Want to make a gratitude list with
me?
Desmond: No! I am not thankful for anything!
Me: You’re not? I sure am. I am so thankful for the world
and everything beautiful in it.
Desmond: No! I hate the world and everything in it! And I
don’t love you any more.
Me: Well, I still love you and I am thankful you are my son.
I continued to rattle of a list of things I was grateful for
even though my son continued to express how incredibly angry he was in numerous
ways. This meltdown was pretty epic.
Yet, for a brief moment while we were sitting on that
flowerbed ledge, God put me in my son’s shoes and took my place as the parent.
I had a moment where I realized I have been acting the same way to God as my
son has been acting towards me.
So my prayer life looks a little like this…
Me: God, this sucks! (Fill in curse words here). I am so
pissed off right now. I can’t deal with this. I can’t plan anything. I can’t eat
anything. I can hardly leave the house. And it’s summer time in Michigan, which
means everything you ever wanted to do that involves outside has to be done.
But guess what? I need to go the bathroom a lot and when I do it’s urgent as
heck. So hiking, camping, and parks without urgent restroom access is out of
the question. A quick trip to the pool with two kids? Not going to happen if I
have to haul their butts out of the pool at lightning speed to book it in the
bathroom. Summer also brings potlucks, BBQ, and weddings with free food/alcohol
that I will get to enjoy none of. And don’t even get me started on all the
summer beers I don’t get to have. Oh and
the ice-cream! Everyone else gets to do
whatever fun things they want and I get to stay home and poop in pain
excessively. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. I just want to be healthy. I just want to do
all the things I want!!!!!!!!! Have I mentioned I am ridiculously mad at you
for not fixing me yet?!
God: Have you tried making a gratitude list?
Me: Not doing that right now. I have a right to feel
miserable and sit in my misery.
God: OK cool. I will continue to bring things to your
attention that you can be grateful for in the mean time.
And God certainly has been bringing an abundance of things
to my attention this week to inspire my gratefulness. Just wished I noticed it
sooner. But here’s what I have been learning…
It’s easy to get bitter and focus on how much everything
sucks and is going wrong. It’s totally OK to hurt and sit in that pain for a
while. However, I have discovered the only way to truly get through the misery
is to learn something from it all, which always leads to redemption. I
have learned gratitude is the key to destroying the bitterness that lingers in
the heart. Gratitude does not come naturally to me but it is worth practicing.
Having a grateful heart has helped me to overcome sins of coveting and
jealousy. Gratitude has allowed me to have joy even during the most profound
miserable circumstances of my life. If there is anything this stupid disease
has taught me, it’s that even through the chronic pain, chronic joy is possible. Don’t get me wrong, I still get royally pissed off about this
disease, but persevering with a heart of gratitude is what keeps me sane at the
end of the day.
Thank you to my son and Jesus for teaching me all this. I
have so much more to learn.
This Chronic Joy post today sounds very much like your post above .... https://chronic-joy.org/2016/07/14/when-words-are-messy/
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