Do YOU understand?

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out" Romans 7:18b

I received a great wake up call on Friday, and I've been dying to blog about it... but due to internet issues, and then Matt and Kayla's birthday party I couldn't. It's not much, deep or extremely theological, but I love the moments when I hear God clearly in my life... so I thought it was blogworthy.

On Friday, Matt was taking clothes out of the dresser while I was trying to get Kayla dressed. Not an extremely unusual event, but HIGHLY frustrating. With a resolution to attempt to actually yell at the kids much less, and discuss issues (at their level) more often, I sat him down to have a talk.

"Matt" I explained. "Mommy doesn't want you to take out the clothes, because it makes a mess, and takes a lot of time to put them away". At the time it was as basic as I could get. Really I wanted to dive into the fact that I have a bizillion (that two zillion, cause I have twins) things to do and the last thing I need is more...

I ended the conversation with a "Do you understand?” Matt looked at me with his big brown eyes and a very confused look and said "nope". I tried again, trying to show him the mess, and again asked "now do you understand" (he's quite smart, I was sure he had it)... Again, Matt said "no".

I was just about to get frustrated, and then God reminded me how many times He has done the same thing with me. Tried to tell me, and tried to show me my mess. My Heavenly Father has often needed to teach me the same lessons... again, and again, and again. And the thing is that with God talking to me, not only do I not understand sometimes, I often pretend to 'get it' only to do the same thing again- skipping the hard work of praying, reading the bible and being with God to figure it out. I know its part of human nature, to make repeated mistakes, but as Christians we're supposed to do our best to research, listen and obey God's commands and directions in our lives, so that we know and God knows that we truly understand. It is my prayer that I'll hear more of God's lessons, and try to apply them to my life, instead of shaking my head to understand, and then going about my business.

For now, I'm going to try to parent the best I can, and you'll probably find me from time to time explaining why clean clothes shouldn't be on the floor... now if I can just get the divine patience needed...