On The Fruit of Our Labor

I need milk. Get me milk, mom.

How do you ask?

I need milk.

Say 'Please.'

Please.

Say 'may I please have milk?'

May please I milk?

Over and over, day after day, I gently coach the just turned three-year-old on how to ask politely and it doesn't seem he's ever going to get it.

And so many things we teach and train our children can seem in vain. Things less obvious than "please" and "thank you" and more treacherous and draining in persistence. The seeds we plant don't appear to be growing and it is easy to give up or to let it go for a while.

Growing anything from soil or dust just doesn't seem to be the business of instant gratification like we want, even expect sometimes.

And it is I who may see a dry and shriveling plant in my house that I had let go and it is my inclination to toss it out, be done with it, start over. Yet it is my husband who has taught me that watering and nurturing will bring life back to any plant that has roots grounded in soil.

And so we do the mundane. the ordinary. the repetition in the watering. nurturing. training.

And then yesterday morning the boy offers me a piece of fruit so scrumptious that I forget my labor.

May I please have milk, mommy?

I about jump out of my pants and I cannot praise him enough.

And I delight in that small fruit and am thankful that I didn't expect less because I thought my child incapable, but rather expected more because I believed it, that watered seeds in good soil will produce fruit in due time.

And it's the fruit of our labor, as parents, that is worth every mundane, ordinary, and repetitive action. This is what we must do. This is our sacrifice. We offer up the mundane and believe that the fruit will come.

::
continuing to count gifts of gratitude...

the repetition of the boy potty training and now going to the potty on his own
spills on the floor, carpet, counter, table that I teach him how to clean up
putting the tree up
advent devotions
truly trusting the fruit beyond please and thank you
a man that I deeply love and respect, to share in all of the beautiful sacrifices we choose to make

Plugging away to 1000 gifts of gratitude and beyond and sharing with A Holy Experience,  Finding Heaven, Graceful, On, In and Around Mondays, and At The Wellspring