I went to my oldest daughter’s class today to decorate her desk for Valentine’s Day, as did the other moms in her 4th grade class. My youngest daughter Reagan was along for the festivities as usual. It was candy central! One mom had decorated her son’s desk in a sports theme and included a giant finger - like the ones that you put on your hand at football games to say that “We’re #1.” Everything was going along just fine until I looked over and Reagan was attacking Lee, the little boy who owned the “We’re #1″ finger. I yelled across the room - “Reagan, give Lee the finger - give Lee the finger!” I didn’t realize what I said until I looked at the pregnant teacher and her mortified face said it all!

I hope that you have a blessed and wonderful Valentine’s Day and try and laugh a little today! If we can’t laugh at ourselves, then who can we laugh at - besides me?

The other night at gymnastics, a little girl was picking on my 7 year old daughter McKenzie - I mean really picking on her. She was knocking her down, pushing her and she even flicked her on the forehead. The teacher didn’t see any of this. It took everything in me to sit in the bleachers up in the balcony and not intervene and let McKenzie take care of herself. And she did. She pushed back, she stood up for herself and continued on with her class. After the class was over, McKenzie came up in the bleachers and crawled up in my lap and cried. She was tough when she needed to be, but knew she could come to me whenever she wanted to. I thought about this later and God showed me that life is like this gymnastics class sometimes and He is up in the bleachers watching. He gets upset and wants to intervene (and may if we call on Him), but knows that during those tough times, our character and strength are being developed and if He intervened, we wouldn’t grow as much as we need to. We can always run to Him and crawl up in His lap and cry if we want to and He will comfort us. I explained all of this to McKenzie right before I went and talked to the gymnastics teacher and told her everything that happened. I also believe that Jesus will protect us and it is my job as a mother to be Jesus to her with skin on. I can’t wait to see what happens next week!