Boogers on my Pillow

The past week in the Brady house was completely exhausting. 4 out of 5 of us had a violent stomach bug. And I don't use the term violent loosely. Picture what you may in your head and I promise it was worse. Much worse. I am pretty sure I reached whatever legal limit may be on the consumer warnings for Clorox. The only good part was that the bug hit us during spring break and so everyone was out of school, oh wait a minute, that's not good news according to my children. We all survived and I must say I do like the "skinny" feeling you get after that much of an exodus from your stomach and intestines. I had that thought as I shared a donut with my children Sunday morning before church. Oh well, skinny like happy is a fleeting feeling, I like chubby and content much better or at least I have worn them well for the past 34 years.

In the days prior to the above mentioned Bennett glided into age 7 and I slammed into the "thirty somethings." I guess there are some things worse than that, like cleaning up vomit and other unmentionables for 72 hours straight.

This morning I woke up with a two year old turned sideways in my bed. Feet in my chest, her head in her daddy's chest. As I started to get up I noticed her boogers on my pillow and I had to laugh. It seems that there have been lots of boogers on my pillow lately, both literally and figuratively. I think sometimes that is just life. You wake up and there is some yuck you have to deal with.

I also think there are two options of how to respond. I was reading in Colossians yesterday and in chapter 1:9-13 it talks about walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him. So I think we can respond to these "boogers" by being discouraged, frustrated, angry, bitter, etc... or we can seek wisdom in the Lord, trust in Him and respond how he would have us to respond.

It doesn't matter how old you are, where you are in life, what you do or even if you have children, at some point you are going to wake up with boogers on your pillow. I pray that my friends, children and husband see me handle them having "patience with joy and always giving thanks to the Father" even when it means cleaning up vomit for what feels like the 10,000 time.