Stupid Soup

Last week I put in a lot of hours at work. My youngest also had chicken pox and was extra cranky.  I didn't get enough sleep and my body rebelled.

Exhaustion hit me today.  My voice is gone. I may even have a fever but I lack the energy to walk to the kitchen for the thermometer.

I laid in bed this afternoon trying to will myself to fold some laundry or at least do something productive, but it never happened.

And then a small face peered through my doorway "I made you some tea mom! It's green tea with stevia, I know you can't have sugar cuz you're sick."

She was so thoughtful and kind to me.

I found myself a little humbled by her sweetness.

But then I screwed up.

She offered to make some soup (out of a can) so I wouldn't have to cook dinner and I took her up on the offer.   I laid there a moment too long I think, because when I went into the kitchen to make sure everything was coming along okay I discovered my giant stock pot completely full of soup, literally every single can of Campbell's soup in our house went into that pot. 

I don't know about you, but my food budget isn't very big and I hate wasting food, so I got irritated with her.

"Olivia THINK before you do things! We can't eat this much soup!"

"I'm sorry mom-mom! I didn't mean to."

"You NEED to think Olivia, c'mon!"

I'm not proud of it.  I was not happy about losing a couple weeks worth of soup.  But I didn't even think about how hard she was trying to help, instead I just got angry.

I felt convicted right after it happened, but I didn't say anything because I still felt the irritation over soup.

It's stupid. I know.

And then tonight while I was getting ready for bed she came up to me, with my "headache" slippers (the kind you can warm up in the microwave) and my neck warmer thing (my kids have seen me get migraines too many times) and handed them to me.

"I hope you feel better mom-mom!"

My eyes got a little misty-eyed and I went to apologize for being all grumpy with her over the soup and when I did she stopped me.  "Mom, you're sick, it's okay.  You weren't that grumpy anyways, you should get some sleep so you feel better."

Ugh.  My heart is sooooo convicted right now. 

She is such a great reminder to me of how beautiful a good attitude is.  It's something I need to remember.  It's something I need to work on.

I wish I was as kind to people as she was to me today.  I don't think that even on my good days that I would have been as kind to me as Olivia was.  I was brat.  I didn't deserve tea or slippers or a neck warmer.  

She showed me Christ-like love today.  My kids continue to help me grow, to push me towards Jesus, to inspire me to make changes when I need to and I am so thankful for these little reminders of how much He loves me. 

I was gonna post a pretty or artistic image of Olivia....but this just seemed right. :-)