~Heart Prints~

Sharing and Wrestling

Yesterday morning I woke up with a great thought in mind— all my boys are home!  What an exciting and wonderful thing to wake up to-  they of course were sound asleep due to a late night run to Steak n Shake- but they were all here- sleeping peacefully.  I had in my mind visions of us ‘sharing’ this special time… it is going to be great- maybe we would sit around and play cards or watch movies or even go for a walk- instead- we ended up all sitting in the family room watching a “wrestling match”— The more things change the more they say the same— I sat there for almost 2 full hours- watching my boys wrestle… I liked it, if possible, even less than I did when they were taught about wrestling at about age 4 by their uncles … anyway- they are doing everything in their power to keep me from being to nervous- they have all the furniture moved out of the way and of course an audience of their friends.  I kept watching and wanting to stop them…wanting to say- in my motherly way- ok guys, someone is going to get hurt or something will get broken.  But so far- they are all laughs and have quit when the “beaten” guy calls time…. so it wasn’t to bad.  Each time the match ended they would want someone declared the winner.   They are all pretty competitive but this strength thing is by far the thing they challenge most with each other.  They knew that I was there- watching and occasionally the one out of the “match” would say- He is ok mom.  This was not at all what I had in mind when I thought about our “sharing’ time together…..but they were happy.  They were laughing and cutting up and they were not seriously hurting each other…. and nothing they were doing was wrong- it was just not my idea of ‘sharing’.

But then—I noticed something- after every time of someone giving up the other guy— the winner- would say- you’re alright, right? - to his brother.  I smiled (on the inside, my heart skipped a beat)— here we were after all our hills and valley- a family- together ‘sharing’  :)  After about the fifth re-match…they all sat down and talked about who was strongest, how much stronger they had gotten to be…it was such a special few moments before they all dashed off to face the real life wrestling matches they live with each day.

I thought last night as I was putting the last dish in the dishwasher- about to call it a day- how my heavenly Father must look down at my life sometimes wanting me to share in time with Him and realizing i am too busy wrestling.  I feel like sometimes He wants to just say Stop- someone is going to get hurt- but I just keep on wrestling…. and while I am being watched closely He knows that the good will win- as long as I play fair.  He will let me roll around and get held down and even be beaten sometimes but- He will watch and if needed He will hold on to me and maybe give me a reason to take a break from this ‘match’.  I know that in all of our real life wrestlings- He is there- smiling when we say or do something that lets Him know we are listening to all He is trying to teach us.  And at the end of the day- I hope my Father smiles down on me knowing that I have learned and will continue to learn through these life wrestling matches…in the mean time- I will enjoy our pretend wrestling matches as long as we are all together.