Let’s start with last night. We got home early evening after school and art class. Ava ran straight back to her room after dumping her backpack and lunchbox in the house to go and put on her Halloween costume. She informed me last week that she was going to wear it every day after school until Halloween… I guess I will get my twenty dollars’ worth! I called back to her and told her that we were eating in 30 minutes, so she needed to come do her homework. This is when the complaining started. Everything was a complaint from that moment on. Of course like every good mom would do, I said things like..” Are you 2 or 7″? ” I don’t want to hear another whine come from your mouth”. ” Not one more complaint”! So now let’s fast forward to this morning… I open my devotional book and got slapped! I will quote from the page…” There is one thing that displeases me: Your tendency to complain. You may talk to me as much as you like about the difficulty of the path we are following. You can ventilate safely to me.” There was more but basically my thoughts were…It is a good thing God doesn’t think things like “I am going to knock your block off if you don’t zip it”. The point of the devotional obviously was that it is not good to whine and complain, but Gods reaction to the complaining was what caught my attention. I overlooked the fact that Ava had been on the go from 7 to 5:30. I overlooked the fact that she was still playing catch up from being sick the week before. I need to be the safe place for her to ventilate, just as God is my safe place to ventilate. That night we lounged in her bed reading books. She wrapped her arms around my neck begging me not to leave just like she does every night. She still loves me with all her heart! So today I find Joy in the unconditional love of my sweet child even when I am a less than perfect mom!

Ava’s first entry in her new “password journal”