Live Strong

This is my tired little man. He is one of my biggest joys in life. He can at times also be my biggest challenge in life.


Today he was my teacher.


Today was a beautiful, crisp autumn morning. Mister Mischief was going a little bonkers being caged up inside with such a sunshine filled day waiting for him outside. We decided to go to the park.

Little mister decided he MUST ride his "mogocycler" bike.... alll... the way... to the park...

This could be bad.

Normally I would strap him in the double wide (stroller that is) and I'd cart the kiddies down to the park since I know how exhausting a day a the park can be for the little rascals.

We usually spend the whole ride home in melt down mode.

But my little man was very insistant that he could do it. He IS a big boy after all. And someone could steal his bike while we are gone (HIS reasoning... not mine).

So away we went to the park. The ride there was great! I was very impressed with my little mans endurance and began imagining the pride of the mother of a Tour de France champion... Lance Armstrong eat your heart out!

The way home, as I'm sure you can imagine, was a different story. He was going strong for the first couple of minutes as we chatted about the important upcoming decision between hot dogs or mac 'n cheese for lunch. But I noticed my little man started lagging behind. I kept talking and it seemed to keep him going but evenually I looked back and saw that he had stopped. He was exhausted and there was not way he could go a step farther.


"I want you to carry my bike!" he declared.

I gave him that "try again" mommy look and he restated:

"Mommy, will you please carry my bike for me? I can't do it anymore."

I see a teaching moment... or maybe I'm just lazy, one can't be sure.

I said, "Sure bud, I will carry your bike home for you, but you need to bring it the rest of the way to me."

I know this sounds mean, but I knew he could do it. It wasn't very far, a couple feet maybe, but I wanted him to push himself a little further before accepting help. I also knew how proud he would be when he saw that he DID do it.

Then it dawned on me, our Father in Heaven says this to me all the time.

Me: Father, I just can't go any farther. PLEASE help me (I asked nicely)

Father: I will help you, but you can go just a little bit farther on your own. I know you can do it, but I want you to know you can do it too.

Me: OH MAN...

But without fail He is right every time. You see, I don't believe that the Lord ever abandons us in our hour of need. You know the moment when the road seems soooo long and you just don't have the strength to go even one step farther. He just has more faith in us than we do ourselves and He lets us take just a couple more steps on our own to prove that faith to US. And when it does get to the point that we really CAN'T do it on our own anymore He scoops up our bike and carries it in one hand while pushing an awkward, non-cooperating double wide stroller with the other hand... all the way home. Or until we decide we're ready to get back on our bike and try it again...

Once Little Mister rested and gathered a little strength he was fine and made it the rest of the ride home. This time instead of looking ahead and how far we still had to go we pointed out all the cool stuff along the way: a dog barking in the distance, a big rock in the middle of the sidewalk and a great big juicy bug hanging out on a leaf. Time flew by much faster this way.

So, the point to all my rambling is this: God does not forget about us. He just has a lot of faith in us. And those last few feet that He wants us to go before He scoops us up goes MUCH faster if we:

Thanks Air for starting my day with that awesome quote.

I needed to remember that today!