Small Sanctification

"It's been a long time since I felt like I was really depending on God for everything," Steve says to me as we're driving home in the dark.

I glance towards the back seat where the kids are finally asleep after screaming silmutaneously for the last forty minutes.

"Really?" I say, incredulously.  "Maybe you should stay home with the kids tomorrow."

My mom always says that children are the best sanctification acceleration tool...a definite bump up from marriage...because when a person is parenting small children suddenly all self-absorbed desires and plans and expectations take a major hike.  When I'm parenting multiple small children, I feel like those "me" desires take a hike to the Antarctic.

And every single day I find myself praying for grace to make the right decisions, to be consistent in discipline, to stay focused on what's really necessary, to not admit myself to the nearest insane asylum so at least I can take a nap.  In the hurry-blurry moments that come and go with a two-year-old and a six-month-old, God's grace is evident when:

• An intense moment of marital fellowship turns into a constructive discussion on parenting consistently
• We squash the Perfectionism Bug and let good friends spend the night at our house on short notice
• I don't run screaming from the bedroom when, at 2am, one child is nursing incessantly and the other child is sleeping on top of me and I am seriously wondering who thought Attachment Parenting was a good idea
• Harriet's attitude does a 180 degree turn as soon as we sit down to read books together
• Both children nap at the same time so I can finish a Bible study worksheet
• I find a package of pancake mix in the pantry when I thought there was nothing for breakfast
• My sweet sisters eagerly and willingly watch Harriet and Edmund

There are many more instances, I'm sure, but this is what comes to my minimal-sleep-latte-buzzed brain right now.  I'm grateful.  Really.