Answers to Prayer

Well, despite the fact that it has been an incredibly emotional day, I am happy to report that the Lord has already proven Himself faithful and answered a couple of my prayers.

We walked to the bus stop just before 8 a.m. this morning, and Cody was so excited to ride the bus with his friends for the first time. He met a little girl there who lives in our neighborhood but we have (sadly) never met. She had Cody's teacher last year. He walked up to her and boldly stuck out his little hand and said, "Hello. I'm Cody. What's your name?" After they exchanged introductions, he said, "It's so nice to meet you!" and he then walked over to the grass, picked her a flower (weed) and handed it to her. If that wasn't enough to push me over the edge, he then picked another flower, walked over to me, and handed it to me with a hug. And then did it to everyone that was standing at that bus stop. My heart overfloweth. And so did my eyes.

With all that was in me, I held onto the tears until that bus was out of view (after he excitedly turned, waved, said "bye-bye mommy and I love you"), and I turned to my husband and sobbed. And I didn't care who saw me.

I need to interject here that as a family, in our devotion time, we have been studying Colossians 3, specifically verses 12-14 about clothing ourselves with compassion and kindness and putting on love. We've been praying that we, as a family, would demonstrate the love of Christ, and while there are days we fail miserably, it is still our constant prayer.

So when Cody got off that bus (I arrived fifteen minutes early even though it's a block from my house...I was just a wee bit excited to see my guy!), I got down on my knee with arms outstretched and grabbed that little boy and gave him a HUGE hug. He had so much to tell me on the walk home, and when I watched him devour his lunch, yes, lunch that he hadn't eaten today (I think he was too busy socializing, from what I can gather), he began to tell me more about his day. He has this buddy, we'll call him "B", and B was on Cody's t-ball team this summer. Apparently B had a really rough day today. The conversation went as follows:

"B cried a lot today."

"How come?"

"He said that he missed his mommy lots."

"Awww, when did he cry?"

"Well, in the morning, at recess, and at lunch."

"So he missed his mom, huh?"

"Yeah. And I did too, but I didn't need to cry."

"Well, that's good."

"Yeah, and at lunch he cried a lot."

"Poor guy."

"Yeah. So, I took my napkin you sent with me today and I tore it in half. I helped him wipe away his tears."

Yes. Thank you Jesus, that you gave my little boy an opportunity to put Colossians 3 to work. And thank you that you used a kindergartener to teach me a little something about compassion today.

"Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." ~1 Peter 3:8