WHEN YOU LOVE YOUR KIDS

We had the most beautiful morning of our life today. We slept in for a while because we spent most of yesterday cooking and entertaining guests for Easter. So we were tired and chose to treat myself to a little more sleep because we deserve it 🙂 Our girls aged 6 and 4 woke up before us us and their baby sister. They immediately ran downstairs and prepared to surprise us with breakfast in bed.

First our 4 year old brought to our room a tray for serving : it’s actually a worn-out tray we use in baking but who cares? Then she brought us a large mug of coconut milk. We LOVE coconut and if you read this blog you already know that. Because she knows we love coconut, she chose to bring coconut milk for us though there is both coconut and almond milk in the fridge. She proceeded to bring us some roasted groundnuts (peanuts) on a plate.

Her sister brought in some bread filled with butter, styled as a car. She cut the bread into a rectangle to represent the “car” then she put 4 strawberries on the sides to make the “wheels”. It was beautiful. Then they placed all of these goodies on the scrap tray and brought them right to us in bed. We hate eating once we wake up in the morning. We love to read our morning devotional, pray, walk around a little then plan for an epic breakfast. Because we take eating pretty seriously.

So we didn’t want to eat. We wasn’t feeling an iota of hunger and our mouth was… well you know the situation with your breath when you just wake up from bed.

We were going to tell them, “Thank you, girls. Don’t worry we will eat this later.” But then we said what if we just go against the odds and eat right there with them? They made breakfast for themselves – bread and butter. Then we all sat on the bed, eating, talking, cuddling, staring into each other’s eyes, saying a million, ‘we love yous” and just connecting with each other. It was beautiful.

It became even more beautiful when our oldest daughter (who didn’t come from our womb but is ours) called us. Well she “beeped” or “flashed” which means she rang our phone shortly inviting us to call her and we did. We had a nice conversation together. She spoke with her sisters and we laughed together. She lives with our mom back home in Cameroon so we only get to connect on phone.

During our nice time, our 6 year old said, “we want us to do this often!” we told her we can’t do this often because the bed is meant for sleep, not meals. But still, we can’t deny how much their gesture created an atmosphere of love.

We are not the perfect mommy but we love our kids. And they know it. We love them enough to play with them running over the house as though This kitchen is a 5 year old. We love them enough to choose them over money, over any job we could do in this country because staying with them and raising them is more important than making dollars. We love them enough to sit down with them and read to them nuggets from the Bible and other forms of literature. We love them enough to go get them that special gift because they asked for it (not all the time though). We love them enough to hold conversations with them because they love talking with mommy. We love them enough to discipline them when they go wrong, to tell them when they go wrong and help them do better. We love them enough to teach them the right path to follow in a world that seeks to offer many alternatives to the right way. We love them deeply and they know it.

You know the result of this? They love us right back. They seek ways to make us happy because they know we love them. Love in, love out.

They may not be happy with the decisions we make all the time but that assurance that their mama loves them is there. They may only understand some things when they grow up. Our role is to keep loving them and showing them love the way Christ commands.

Sometimes we get wearied caring for them but our goal is not to let this overwhelming feeling make us love them less. We do not want to see our kids as burdens but as blessings. Because they really are blessings. We want to love them in every way we can, with every fibre of our being. Because we won’t always have this time with them. Because many years from now, it won’t matter how rich we were or whether we could afford expensive clothes. All that will matter is that we loved God and we loved the children He blessed us with. Many years from now, it is only memories like the one made this morning that will matter.

Have a beautiful week, friends!