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Yesterday Judah (4 years old) asked if he could pray for his lunch.  I said sure and bowed my head with him as he prayed. “Dear God, Thank you for peanut butter and grasshoppers. Amen.”

Simple in words. Deep in back-story.

A couple of days before I had run out of his favorite sandwich ingredient: peanut butter.  I needed to make a special trip to the little small town grocery store down the street for that and a couple of ‘it can’t wait until the weekly trip’ ingredients. For that Judah was thankful for a thick slathering of peanut butter and a generous helping of good grape jelly for his lunch.

The day before I filled up the old hard plastic pool in the backyard and the supposed to be a turtle sandbox with water. Dumped a bunch of random toys in both and had the kids put on their swimming suits.  Three kids smiling, giggling and (happy) screaming for three hours.  A toad was found. The toad was made a home. And an ever prized grasshopper was found and captured.  Judah was elated.  Something so small, but such a big deal to him.  Both were released unharmed before bedtime to rejoin their families.

God has been showing me sometimes gently, sometimes in a STOP!!/’bucket of cold water over my head’ type of way, that I need to SLOW DOWN!  Slow down for our children. Slow down the schedule. Linger more. Wait more. Be patient with my words, actions and body language. Words like “we don’t have time for that”, “hustle up”, “we are late”, “hurry. hurry, hurry up!” need to be phrases that are not uttered from my mouth as much.

I couldn’t help but smile, and then repent. Lord, please help me slow down. Help me not to miss these truly precious and priceless moments. Help me to usher these moments into our families days more and more, so that they become a norm and not an exception.

I agree with Judah.  Dear God, thank you for peanut butter and grasshoppers. Amen.