Love Is Patient

Some mornings are irritating.  This morning was.

I discovered that Daniel was sent to bed last night without a Pull-Up on, which meant of course that he wet the bed.  I took off the allergy cover to throw it in the wash, and...the mattress underneath was disintegrating.  We got the mattress from a relative, and a few months of a small boy and his older sibs jumping on it had torn it apart.

So I dragged the mattress out of the study into our sun room, which meant I had to go through 2 rooms.  Bits of the mattress were, of course, spewing all over.  I worked on cleaning it up and asked the big boys to haul the mattress to the street. They had trouble, so I had to help a bit, but they did much of it themselves.

By this time, Rose was falling apart and the study needed washed.  Isaac very graciously offered to watch Rose in the sun room.  His method was hilarious but effective. He got a big balloon, blew it up, and then released the air with the opening nearly closed. Result, a high pitched, agonizing squeal that drove many of the older siblings crazy. But Rose loved it, so I loved it.

I got the study washed.

Kevin  has the day off and he came down around 9 a.m.  We talked for a while about life and mattresses.  Thankfully, he is able to run off and buy a new one today.

I took 4 girls to our local children's thrift store at about 10 a.m.  Rose needed shoes, because one of the shoes in her only pair of shoes went missing this weekend.  I also wanted to buy fall colored shirts for all 4 girls, as we are having family pictures done by a lovely friend, a professional, this week.

Bringing my 9, 8, 4, and 1 year old girls to this thrift store, alone, was a mistake. Rose was tired and (I discovered later) had a messy but not smelly diaper.  She put up with about 5 minutes of searching for clothing, then fell apart.  She thrashed. She whined. She howled. She was, bluntly, horrible. Horribly behaved, I mean. In her essence, she was and is always wonderful and I love her dearly.

So we made it as quick as we could, and I did not get everything I wanted. But my patience had run out and I needed to get everyone home.

And did.  And we had lunch. And Rose is in bed.  And I'm going to take a little break and relax as well.

Through all this, I kept my cool -- entirely because God is good and gives me strength. This week, I've been working with one child in particular on this verse:

1 Corinthians 13:4New International Version (NIV)

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

I needed that too...LOVE IS PATIENT.  LOVE IS PATIENT.  LOVE IS PATIENT.