Refreshing Moments

Refreshing moments are not always brought to us by Coke or Pepsi or even Water! (Insert gasps here!) The life of a mom can be over stimulating and full of moments when we want to simply look the other direction and ask someone if these are their kids! Surely, something that I have loved and cherished since they were tiny would not treat me with such embarrassing moments. However, being a mother can bring you to your knees with a melted heart when your children are the instruments of love.

As my readers know, I have 5 children in my life with me now and they each have times when I smile and take in a deep breath while one of them reminds me what brings life to our souls: LOVE. My smallest little boy is currently on his way to his 2nd birthday. He fills the house with the most love and the most noise and sometimes at the same moment! His precious laughter brings joy to my heart each time I hear it. But that is not the refreshing moment that I am talking about.

To be refreshed in a way is to receive fulfillment of a thirst, true? I think that I can safely say that we are all refreshed when we let life slow down on a vacation. We also become refreshed when we stop a busy life and stressed muscles for a massage. In that same way I often need to be refreshed with the truth of kindness. It can seem so many times like being a mother is the ugliest job out there and that no one in the world is really nice to anyone else. In one week I hear the pain of meanness and the bitterness of unfair words and in the midst of it all, I have witnessed the most refreshing act of kindness. As my 2 yr old enters a room of fighting and bickering over who made a mess of the toys and who will pick up which side of the room, the 2 yr old (who was not involved in the playing or the making of the messes) begins to hum and clean. Clean and sing. Smiling as the sweetest blessing to a sibling one could give. Now, in the middle of the room still stand two other children complaining and grumbling, oblivious to the chore at hand being accomplished by an innocent bystander.

This refreshing moment brought to me tears of joy and to witness such an act I swept the 2 yr old up and offered praise and a cookie for being such a great helper. Of course, the offer left two other children in tears and their messy adventure will be a tale for another day, but I know that at the heart of every act of kindness is the heart of a child who knows they are Loved. Love does strange things to us, but it should offer refreshment to others too!