Just how God Works

I was reading "Don't Make Me Count to Three!" by Ginger Plowman last night and here is what stuck out in my mind about pride in parenting:

It is a little long, but worth the read...

"One particular lesson stands out. I learned humility well one Friday afternoon in the Winn Dixie Grocery Store about three years ago.

Normally, I do my grocery shopping in the morning while the store is not so crowded. But for whatever reason, I found myself waiting in the checkout line at 6:00 pm on Friday with my two children. The place was packed. There were cashiers at all 10 registers and six or seven carts in every line. In the line next to me, the very last line, waited a mother and her two small children. They were about the same ages as my children, three and five. Mini refrigerators filled with various drinks were strategically located at the end of each checkout counter.

The five-year-old began to beg mom for a coke (Let the games begin!).

Mom gave a firm, "No." The boy began to walk over to the refrigerator.

Mom said (loudly), "You'd better not open that door!" The boy opened the door.

"You better not pull a drink out of there, mister!" The boy grabbed a coke.

"If you open that coke you are going to get it!" The boy unscrewed the cap, tossed it on the floor, and took a big swig.

Mom was screaming now, having completely lost it. "You just wait until we get home and your daddy hears about this! You kids never listen to me. I've had it up to here with you both!"

No one was able to decipher the exact location of "here" but we kept listening anyway. It's not that we were being nosy. It's just that there is nothing else to do while waiting in line, so this scene had the full attention of every customer. Now, in order for all theses people to watch the scene unfold, they had to look past me and my children, who on this particular day were behaving well. Enter pride. Rather than having compassion for this poor mom and the struggles she was having with her children, I smugly thought, "You won't see my kids acting like that."

And then it happened. My three-year-old daughter, Alex, was standing right behind me when all of the sudden she blurted out the most horrible three words imaginable. It was as if she had grabbed on of the microphones from a checkout counter and yelled into it with all her might. Waving her hands frantically in front of her face, in a BOOMING voice, she screams, "Mama! You Pooted!" My entire body froze. Time stood still. To this day, I do not know which was worse - the second she blurted it out or the minute it took for everyone to realize it was true."

So last night, I was dying of laughter when I read this. Then today when I got up, I realized 3 of my kiddos had to see the dentist at 9:20 (why on earth did I schedule something so early???). So off we all went. I rarely take all four of them to the store, but I figured that since we were already out, I would get a couple of things I was out of at Wal-Mart. For once, my kids were behaving well...so much so that some old lady came up to me and said how well behaved they were. This has NEVER happened to me...EVER. Just before I allowed myself to feel good about the comment...the story came rushing to my mind. The rest of the trip, I just kept thinking, "don't poot!" Heehee :-)

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 11:2a When pride comes, then comes disgrace...