“Mama, will you play my new game I got for Christmas with me?” Grace asked. It was a floor game; not one you can play neatly at the kitchen table. I imagined crawling around on the floor to play and my back hurt just thinking about it. Exhausted but determined to spend time with my five-year-old, I agreed.
Then the phone rang with an important call from the body shop where my car was being fixed. “Just give Mama a few minutes to handle this call, and then we will play your game. Okay?”
I took the call while Grace paced around me in circles. After twenty laps or so, she wandered into the den and played with matchbox cars. When she heard me end the call, she came running. “Now Mommy? Can we play now?”
“Almost,” I told her. “Now I need to make a quick call to Daddy to explain to him what I found out.”
“Okay,” she shrugged her shoulders and walked off to the playroom. But minutes later, she returned holding her brand new game with the entire lid ripped in two.
Shocked, I exclaimed, “Grace!! Why did you do that?!” She just looked at me with tears teetering.
I quickly ended my call with Alan to talk to Grace. Less than ten minutes had passed from start to finish for both calls. I didn’t ask her to wait that long. Sitting down at the table to assess the damage to her new game, I looked my daughter in the eyes.
“Grace, why would you tear into your game like this?” I knew the answer. She wasn’t patient enough to wait on me to help. But what I couldn’t understand was when it first began to rip, why didn’t she stop immediately? Why continue to rip off pieces of the box and tear the entire lid in half?
I walked to the garage for clear packing tape and returned to repair the box while Grace and I had a chat.
“Honey, did I tell you I would play this game with you as soon as I got off the phone?” Her curly head nodded, her eyes on the floor. “Did you believe me when I said it?” She nodded again. “Don’t I always keep my promises?” She looked up with fat tears in her big brown eyes.
“Yes,” she said, lip quivering.
And as I said the next words, the hairs stood up on my arms, and I listened as I spoke, as if I wasn’t the one speaking them. “Grace, when I make a promise, you have to trust I will keep it. You cannot rush ahead and do things on your own. You knew you couldn’t open that box without my help. Since you didn’t have patience, you made a big mess.”
I knew God was speaking the words directly to me.
I’ve been working on writing a book proposal for “Sheep to the Right: Becoming the Everyday Misssionary” for almost seven years. I wrote. I stopped. I had a baby. I stopped for a long time. I wrote again. I stopped again. But on the day Grace ripped her game open, I was close to finishing. I wondered if I was crazy for thinking God told me to write it all those years ago. He promised me He had a great plan for it. I questioned that, too.
God can speak through anyone and anything – and that includes yourself. He can place words in your mouth you didn’t know you had and use your everyday situations to tell you exactly what He wants you to hear. And He did. He reminded me of His promise and warned me not to push ahead.
So, I actually finished the book proposal last week and sent it to some of my trusted people to critique. I’ve already got some changes I need to make, but I will complete them and try to be patient during this part of the process. You see, after I repaired Grace’s game, we played together – just like I promised.
And I know God will keep His promise, too. He just told me so – last week.
**Mission trip update! Thank you for those of you who bought t-shirts. The fundraiser was a great success and we raised almost $600 for our mission trip. Please continue to pray for the team as we prepare. Thank you!
