Please Stop Eyeballin My Waffles

I'm sitting at my table, my focus switching between two of my weirdest children having a waffle eating contest and Phil Wickham singing "It Is Well With My Soul." 

There's rules: 

you can't take that big of a bite.

You can't take another bite without me being ready to take another bite. 

Because your waffles are gluten free it's probably easier to chew so you have to give me a head start. 

Yes well, if anything the gluten free waffles are probably smaller, so I should get to take more bites without you knowing. 

I can't explain this contest. Or much else. 

But I'm listening to this song banked against reading 1 Peter, which I noticed contains a lot of cause and effect. A lot of rules for guiding a person's life. 

Don't be like that… and as a result you can show others the goodness of God. 

Be careful with your behavior and God will be glorified when others watch you. 

Submit to authority so the authority sees a solid heart led by love. They'll be better at bossing you. 

Don't be concerned with looks-it's easy to become obsessed. Instead focus on beauty that never ends; the Unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. 

As a slightly loud woman with a gift for leadership it can be difficult to reconcile these truths. But just like that, Addison stood and declared she was the winner of the waffle contest. And so can I. 

I don't win at the rules all the time. Most of the time. I get annoyed with people who make me repeat directions they spoke over. 

I picture myself plucking those who hurt other people out of sheer neglect. 

When people make stuff up to save their skin, I want to put a stick in their bike spokes. 

And for real, I get crazy irritable when someone comes to me and we talk for weeks and pour over their hurts and pray through their struggles and they go right back to whatever is hurting them. I've got issues. 

I forget myself and my role and the fact that my beauty is determined by my love for others and my quiet, gentle side. To be sure it's a very small side right now. I'm working on it. 

My favorite line from any poem is written by Dylan Thomas. "Do not go gentle into that good night." 

I can't figure how this favorite set of words pairs with my quiet, gentle side anymore than I can make sense of Sam's rule that he gets two licks of syrup every time Addison chews ten times in one bite of waffle. I can only conclude he is an elf and that he sticks to the four main food groups. 

We are each a work in progress. Thank tou for being here with me. I don't know that I could handle these children without you.