Mushy Monday

My mushy post goes out to my dear friend Christina this week! During one of the more difficult weeks of our parenting lives she made us dinner and brought it to us and brought us an additional dinner to make the next night! It was such a blessing to Kyle, Tommy, and me. Kyle hadn't had a real meal since we left his parents' house on Sunday and Tommy was barely eating b/c he had been sick and teething. I had planned to make dinner the night before but my sweet boy wouldn't let me sit him down, he needed his mama to hold him. And I hadn't been to the grocery in over a week so we were limited on options any way.

Christina offered to bring us dinner in an email, and I almost initially wrote back, "no that's okay" but then I thought about it for a second and realized that it really would be a huge help. But even as I was going to write her back I kept fighting with my pride to whether or not I should really accept her generous offer. But then I remembered what a sweet friend I met in Kenya told me. He's from Kenya and was one of our guides during the week and we were on the bus headed somewhere and he was getting up and asked, "Can I get you something to drink?" (or something of that sort, I know we were eating) and I responded, "Oh no that's okay I can get it myself." Just thinking I didn't want to make him go out of his way. And he said very seriously back to me, "You do know that you should allow people to serve you. You keep wanting to serve us but we want to have the privilege to serve you too, and you should allow us to." So of course somewhat embarrassed I said said something like, "okay I'll take a water then." But what he said is really true, when I have the opportunity to serve someone else it is so fulfilling. It's what Christ wants us to do, and to do it in His name (sometimes I have a hard time remembering that but I also think that's connected to the reason why it really does feel good to serve and love others through that service) but we also have to give people the same opportunity and allow them to serve us. Anyhow since Christina is a close friend I did actually agree. And Kyle thought it was a little silly that I agreed to it, b/c obviously we can go grab something out to eat but we had been doing that a lot already. But after he had Christina's dinner I asked if he was glad that I accepted her offer and he strongly agreed at that point. And he finished off all the leftovers the next night!! And poor, starving Tom Tom ate so much of it too, it was the first big meal he had eaten in about a week! (His canines are coming in and he had strep so he had been eating hardly anything)

And here's the other neat thing, it made me feel even closer to Christina by allowing her to serve us. It doesn't completely make sense to me, maybe it's b/c I felt kind of vulnerable in a sense by letting my guard down and trying to push my pride aside. Who knows. But I'm so grateful for her sweet friendship and her willingness to serve us!

Here's an oldie but a goodie of Christina and Tommy who is showing off his gymnastic skills

On a good note, things are looking up in our household! Tommy is doing better, Praise the Lord! He is taking his first antibiotic in his life, I think at a year and a half old that's not too shabby! That's something I want to remember too! He's been a very healthy boy and we're grateful to God for that. The Lord knows we couldn't handle this often.