Maybe it's me...

Watching my girls has taught me so much about life. Parenthood is pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to my spiritual life and it's beautiful to see how much God reveals about His love through my relationship with my children. It's equally amazing to see how I must look, as a child of God, to a heavenly father who watches me struggle with the most basic of spiritual issues...

The other day I watched Ivy try to change her own diaper. See, she's got this potty training mission she's on. She's trying to rush things a bit faster than I'd like so I've kind of let her figure some things out on her own in an attempt to stall her. But, try she does and so she attempted to change into a new pull up. But, she forgot a really basic step. She left the old one on. So, here she is, pulling up a diaper while wearing a diaper and failing miserably at the whole undertaking. And I am watching in amusement as she both tries to rush to grow-up and attempts something she simply isn't ready for. When she discovers it isn't going to work she throws the diaper down in frustration and does what I would probably do if faced with a comparable situation. She grabs a different diaper and tries that one instead. She went through 3 diapers before coming to me for help with the whole thing.

And while I thought she was pretty funny for not figuring the whole thing out sooner, I found myself considering how many times I've done the exact same thing. Sure, my failures or frustrations are much bigger (to me at least) but in the grand scheme of things I marvel at how God must view them in His infinite clarity and eternal perspective. I mean, when I try and fail to do the same thing over and over am I any different from Ivy trying to put her diaper on? Does it look any different to God when I try and rush something or fail to simply ask for His help in a difficult situation?

I ask myself, why do I not bring something to God immediately when faced with a seemingly unsurmountable situation? Because as a parent could I possibly have denied Ivy the help she so obviously needed from me? Nope. Never. What did I do when she came over to me for help? I took control of the situation and helped her work everything out.

I guess all that is to say that the next time I try over and over again and fail miserably I'll have to remember that maybe it isn't the diaper, maybe it's me...