Be Careful What You Ask For (Gabrielle)
So I hear people say things like “Be careful what you ask for” and it is implied that you might get exactly what you ask for and you probably won’t like it. Well, I asked God to make me useful and to give me opportunities to shine and, well, that’s exactly what we’ve been getting this past week.
Last Saturday I think it was some children who had just moved in across the alley came over to our backyard and asked if they could play with our kids. We said yes and it was all lovely. It was kind of a surprise because there aren’t many children in our neighborhood and none who come over and ask to play. So these children kept coming over to play and especially the two older girls kept coming back and wanting to stay longer. And they kept asking if they could come in. Crystal walked over and met their parents and so Tuesday they started coming in the house and playing with the kids. And then they came back. And again. And then their parents started sending them over to ask for things. And then they started coming over right around lunchtime everyday.
So life’s been kinda stressful lately. Crystal and I have what feels like heaps of work to do to get ready to move and we are so emotionally strung out by these girls being around us and the children we are too tired to do anything. And when we weren’t looking their parents assigned us as daycare and just keep dumping their kids on us. The culture shock is enough to exhaust me, but our kids get really agitated around the girls and have been getting more mouthy and snippy. So we might have to call it quits and just start saying No, I’m sorry, you can’t come over to play today.
We’ve been joking that it’s all my fault because I was the one who asked God for opportunities, but when I’m serious I do believe that God sent us this glimpse of the world. It’s like He’s asking us if we’re still serious about moving to the city and being salt and light. I’m going to say Yes, I’m still serious, but it was a bit of a struggle to come back to that answer. It will be hard, stressful and heart-wrenching, but if it’s where we’re supposed to be God will keep dropping people in on us and making us useful and giving us opportunities to shine. We were just reading what Jesus said about being salt and about being light. We aren’t any good if we lock all the doors and close all the curtains and just shine for ourselves. And I would really like to be good for something. Even when it’s hard.Â
We have several neighborhood children and I am always amazed by how they behave. Most of these children are good kids, they simply have a whole different set of expectations. I learned long ago that when my children go out to play they are never out of sight or hearing. This came from a situation were a neighbor boy age 4 went around the corner of my home with my 4 year old daughter. When I went around the corner to see what they were doing he had his shorts pulled up, and his boyhood pulled out. My daughter later explained with a look of disgust that he had ask her to put it in her mouth. Life of a four year old in the ghetto. As I said, its to bad becase many of the children are great, they just dont know. To balance being a light with the task of being a protector is never easy.
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need”
(I can’t believe I just quoted the Rolling Stones!)