5 Minute Friday- Broken

Lisa Jo's FMF link up is on facebook this week because her amazing post she wrote on love this week apparently crashed some servers or something!!  Check it out.  It's awesome.

So, the word this week is Broken!  A familiar one.  When you have a house full of boys, the fact of the matter is- things break.  Lots of things.  On a regular basis.  That leaves the lady of the house with a few choices. . .lose it or deal with it.  It took me a while to come to the conclusion that #2 was the best way to handle this aspect of my pretty much daily life, and this is when it happened. . .

Broken

I am in the kitchen, putting together some dinosaur shaped sandwiches for my little ones.  Daniel is 3, Philip is 4, and Josh is 1.  This is pretty easy peasy because at this tiny age, the sandwich cutter makes three sandwiches!  2 dinosaurs for the big boys and the crust leftover for the non-discriminating toddler.  Have  I mentioned what an awesome mom I am lately?  Crust for lunch!?? The counter is cluttered as it always is when I am trying to "cook" (and I am going to use that term loosely because really I am just making a turkey sandwich for pete's sake) and the sun is pouring in my window and puddling on the crumb speckled floor.  I am pretty sure I got distracted by the sun or the crumbs and my thoughts or nodded off at the sink or something because before I knew it Word World or Super Why or whatever was over and three tiny friends were bounding into the kitchen looking for lunch.  As I snapped to it and started to scramble to get food on their little plates for them to get into their little bellies, Daniel picks up the sandwich cutter off the counter, turns around, holds it up in the air and just. . .lets. . .go.

Crack.

And the dino sandwich cutter is extinct just like that.  Remember I said I had two choices?  Well, this time I made the lesser choice.  I just lost it on poor, sweet, unsuspecting Daniel over a broken sandwich cutter.  Get down in your face pointing and scolding and angry "lost it".  Seriously?  Now, on one hand I felt pretty justified because Daniel does impulsive things on a regular basis and sometimes it gets a little old.  But on the other hand his heart is gold and his intent is good and sometimes it just gets a little mixed up.  Did I really need to YELL about a broken sandwich cutter?  Did he need to be shamed over that?  If seeing if something can bounce (yeah, that was his reason) is shameful we might need to look again at our definition of shame.  By the time the boys sat down at the table and I walked away for a moment and had all of these thoughts, I came back to find my little friends at the table, eating quietly.  I looked at Daniel with a humble heart and I said, "Sweetie, I am really sorry for yelling at you about that.  I forgive you for breaking my sandwich cutter."

And my little blonde angel of a three year old looks at me with his big blue eyes and says, "Mommy, it's OK.  I forgive you for breaking my heart."  Aaaaaaaaaand then my heart broke.  In a million little pieces.  And I grabbed his little shoulders and I hugged him like I never wanted to let go.

I come back to that moment often.  We have four kids.  And I am really clumsy myself.  Life is messy. Things break, but I never want to break their little hearts, or their little spirits, or my fellowship with them over something like a $5 piece of plastic or a cup of spilled milk or a broken toy or a dish or whatever it is that day.  I'm not saying I don't still lose it every once in a while, because, hey, we're all human here, but if I do I sure do want to ask forgiveness.  Grateful to kids who freely give it to broken me!

(Now, if you want a REALLY good one on brokenness, read my sister's post from last year where she guest posted on Story Fork (a community engaging global disability)

http://blog.99balloons.org/imperfect-vessels-3/

She's pretty awesome.  :)