Let the Little Children Come to Me

Thursday and Friday afternoon were both pretty crazy.  My daycare kiddos decided to gang up on me and each have multiple blowout poopy diapers.  By 3 pm, when I was changing yet another disgusting diaper, I was beginning to feel slightly flustered.  Of course, having Kellah crawl over me and try to get to the diaper wasn't helping things.  The last thing I needed was for her to stick her hands in the poop and then try to eat it.    I had already dealt with her snacking on poop once that week. (We were at the park, and Coralyn needed to go to the bathroom, but of course there wasn't a bathroom available.  We found some bushes, popped a squat and did her business.  I had to set Kellah down to help Coralyn, and in that span of about 32 seconds, Kellah somehow managed to find a dog turd to munch on.  GROSS!!!) 

I was doing my best to change the diaper as quickly as possible and keep Kellah from getting in the middle of the mess.  After "pushing" Kellah aside several times and trying to distract her with various toys, I was able to successfully clean everything up and get the diaper thrown away.  Only to discover that another one of the kiddos had pooped!

Back to the changing table (aka my living room floor) we went!  And here came Kellah to "help" me once again!  As I was trying to keep her at an arm's length and wanted to shout out, "Just leave me alone for 5 seconds!!!" a thought popped into my head.  I wonder if Jesus ever felt like this?  Was He ever overwhelmed with everyone always pressing in on Him?  Did He ever want just a minute to Himself? Did He ever want to scream for everybody to go away?

Probably, but I don't think He ever did.  Nope, instead, He healed the woman who had been sick for 12 years, while He was on his way to raise a dead girl back to life.  And then that time when He tried crossing over to the other side of the lake, only to be greeted by huge crowds of people, He just jumped in a boat and taught them from there.  Or the time when over 5,000 people had followed Him well past supper time and were left stranded without anything to eat.  He didn't send them away hungry; instead, He took a boy's small lunch and turned it into an all you can eat buffet, with 12 baskets of leftovers!

But the kicker, especially given my situation of dealing with pooping kiddos for 2 days in a row, was when Jesus was "mobbed" by parents bringing their children to Him so He could lay His hands on them and bless them.  His disciples tried to help Jesus out and told the parents to GO AWAY, to leave Jesus alone.  But, Jesus wouldn't have any of it.  Rather than get flustered or annoyed, Jesus welcomed the children with open arms.  Then, He went a step further and told His disciples they needed to be more like these precious little ones!

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so He could touch and bless them.  

But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering Him.

When Jesus saw what was happening, He was angry with His disciples.

He said to them, "Let the children come to me.  Don't stop them!  

For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.  

I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn't receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it."  Then He took the children in His arms and placed His hands on their heads and blessed them.

Okay, okay, obviously God was reminding me that I needed to be more like Jesus.  He has certainly been putting my patience to the test this weekend as Coralyn has been sick and puked multiple times, on the carpet.  Despite having to get down on my hands and knees to scrub berry, banana, oatmeal, and graham cracker stains, God has helped me see the positive in Coralyn not feeling well.  She's much more cuddly.  Normally, she won't sit still for more than 3 seconds, unless she's "sitting" on my lap (with her extremely bony butt!) while I am reading her a book and doing my best to keep Kellah from eating the pages :)

On top of the reminder to "let the little children come to me" instead of pushing them away or wanting to have  just a minute or two to myself, God has a sense of humor and reminded me that I am not perfect either.  Just as I was sitting down to check facebook and email this morning, I spilled some of my coffee on the carpet, that I had just steam cleaned!