Princess Grace

Princess Grace

Here on the school campus, there is a church that meets and the pastor and his family live on the campus as well. This family has been a tremendous blessing to us. Grace is their three year old and she has been over twice to play with Gabriella. My kids like to kill and destroy when they play and we continue to work hard at keeping this under control.

Our home as well as our team center are protected by a cement wall that goes around the entire property. This week we have used the team center to help us set up our home by having boxes and tubs spread throughout the center with the ability to separate all our things and put them away in a more organized order. In one of the rooms, we have all the kids toys and games. There are about 10 tubs of misc. items from dolls, to dress-up clothes, balls, games, play dough, art supplies, etc. This is where my two girls and then Grace and her older sister were playing. Bella and Gabriella returned home and wanted to stay at the house after playing for about 2 ½ hours. I talked with Grace and her sister and Susanna their mom and told them they were more than welcome to stay and play even though my girls came home to rest. After about 3 more hours, I sent Isabella over to tell the girls that it was time to go home.

In an instant, Isabella busted through the door like she had just seen a vicious snake. She could not say fast enough, “Mommy, you are gonna be so mad and you will be a really yelling mommy! (I have done a great job at not being a yelling mommy when I get frustrated with the children. I asked them to help me with this…. Hence Isabella’s comment.) It is all killed and destroyed over there. I assumed that they had done their norm and had several too many toys out and had a lot to clean up. I told her we would get to it later and I was glad that they all had such a good time playing together.

Morning came and I went over to start working on unpacking some more boxes. When I entered what was the room with about 10 tubs of toys I for a moment wished I was dreaming! If I had been in America, I would have not just yelled but probably had to leave my home with intense anger. There was not one bit of the tile floor visible. Every tub was emptied. Every game was out of the box. Items made out of play dough and then balls of play dough were everywhere. Every crayon and marker was out of the box. Do you get just a little picture of what the room looked like…? Yep, I took a few breaths and walked away.

I began to unpack as I grumbled at how mad I was at myself for not doing a better job of checking in on the girls. I was also mad at the two girls for not being more respectful of the toys we were allowing and wanting them to enjoy…… It was then that in a sweet and gracious manner, I felt like the Lord was giving me a picture of the joy this room gave those two little girls. It was like me walking into a room with 100 different wedding cakes. I would be been so excited I would have done the same thing except that the cake would have been on the inside of my body; yet, the joy no different. The Lord quickly moved me to compassion and a joy that I prayed was a high in the lives of those two little girls. (Oh, they are totally welcome back and I want them to experience that same joy; however, I will do a much better job in directing their choices!)

Three days after this event, Susanna came over. She wanted me to know that the princess dress and princess shoes that the girls had given to Grace had not come off her body until this morning when she made Grace take it off so it could be washed. She noted that she even sleeps with the dress and shoes on. The comment that made me melt was that Grace said, “I’m a princess now!”