What Not to Pray For

Why is it the day I pray to be more gentle with my mothering is the day that I want to knock heads together? I have learned not to pray for patience, but this seemed harmless enough. I thought it would mean that we snuggled and hugged all day long. Not so much.

I gave Jacob two options for our morning walk. He could a) walk and we would only go around once or b) ride his tricycle (with me pulling him, of course, which means I'm doing 90% of the work) and we would go around twice. He chose "a" and off we went. We were barely off our driveway when he started crying and he didn't stop crying almost the whole way around. When he wasn't dragging his feet a quarter of a mile behind us, he was hanging onto the jogging stroller making it hard for me to push. I ended up slapping his hand off the stroller and giving him the finger in the face "stop crying now or else" talk before we finished our mile. So much for gentleness. 

Often it seems that the more I pray for help, the worse I do as a mother. I mean, getting mad at your three year old because she went potty and you have to go wipe her bottom? Like she can help it. Granted she has a bladder the size of a kidney bean and goes every five minutes which would irritate anyone, but still. 

Or maybe it's not that I am being a worse mother, but the more I pray for help, the more I see I can't do it on my own. The more I see myself through the lens of God's Word, the more I see my own need for a Savior. There is nothing good in me. Fact. A good person wouldn't hide in her closet and eat a pack of those new mini KitKats. A good person would share them with everyone. But me, I eat them behind closed doors. And don't even feel guilty. 

I'm making a joke, but truly, it's not. I can't just pray a prayer and expect goodness to magically overflow. No, I have to actively and genuinely minute by minute, grasp onto the hand of the Savior and let His goodness wash over me. Then take that goodness and pass it around, doling out the graciousness of Heaven.