This afternoon Aspen met the kids who live next to Grandmas house.  The little boy and girl were just about Aspens age.  They brought out a blanket and sat on the grass and ate a snack of yogurt and pretzels.  After resupplying their energy the neighbor kids hopped onto their Big Wheels and let Aspen borrow a bicycle and off they peddled down the sidewalk.  I watched them carefully and was surprised to see them veer off the sidewalk and begin to cross the street.  Grandma’s house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, but I and the neighbor kids grandma, who happened to be watching them, called them back.  Unfortunately, all three children seemed to have lost their ability to hear.  After several stern warnings they turned around and came back.  This scenario repeated itself several times with grandma finally going inside to tell her son that his kids needed him to lay down the law.

No sooner had the law-laying father returned inside than all three children promptly rode their modes of transportation off the sidewalk and onto the street again!  Now this time my patience had run out.  I have this misguided belief that children should listen the first time, every time!  What rock have I been hiding under you ask?  Never mind I won’t answer that, but lucky for Aspen her more patient father arrived outside at just the right moment and enforced his much more lenient opinions of how children should behave.

I groan with aggravation at the kids apparent lack of hearing and response to my requests that are for their best interests and safety.  How can they not listen to me, I wonder in amazement!  Surely they know how dangerous it is to play in the street!

But, then it hits me that God tells me things pretty clearly also and I just make as if I didn’t really hear or hope that He didn’t really mean what He said.  You know what I mean, that little voice you hear telling you not do something and yet you just ignore it and do what you want to anyway.  I’m thankful God’s  patience and understanding more closely resemble Brett’s than mine!