Gò0dNews for Parents
Growing in Grace by Monica Gambrell
I
never cease to be amazed at the love of our Lord. He is
and sting her, but it laid there alive and received the gentle
involved in even the smallest of events if we allow Him
stroking with all good nature. I convinced Rachel to allow
to be. When my oldest daughter, Rachel, was about 2
it to fly free, and as soon as she stopped stroking it, the bee
years old, she was involved in two different situations in which the sovereignty of God was evident. Every parent
flew away! A few days later, we were playing in the yard when
learns to be cautiously aware of what I call the “dreaded
Rachel came toward me again with the now familiar,
silence.” Now I would never normally put such a negative
“Yook, Mommy.” I was already dreading it. Between her
connotation on the word silence, but when an active child
tiny thumb and forefinger was a creature I had not seen before—or since. It was about the size of my pointer finger, more than three inches long and just as fat. It was limegreen with many fat stubby legs like a caterpillar, but its body was hard and shingled like an armadillo. I was stupefied as well as terrified. As calmly as possible, I directed her to put it down on the ground. We hurried into the house to find a jar with a lid and captured it safely to show my husband. By the time he had come home from work, it had sprayed a web against the sides of the jar and was trying to climb up the glass to the top. Aaaaaaahhhh! It was at this point that I thought I
becomes curiously silent, you can almost guarantee that
might not survive parenthood. I was deluding myself, and
they are into something they shouldn’t be.
as our brood grew to include five children, I revised my
On one such occasion, she met me when I was halfway
thinking. Once things like this began to happen to one of our
to her room to check on her. She was proudly saying, “Yook,
children on an almost daily basis, I knew that I was being
Mommy,” as she held her hand out to me with something
strengthened. With God’s help I could handle anything. I
in it. I was almost afraid to look at what she had gotten into,
even have a plaque in my kitchen that reads: “I can survive
but I knew I must. She had “captured” a bumblebee! It was
any crisis—I have children!” There’s a lot of truth to that.
lying helplessly in her palm as she used her fingers just next
God knows what we can handle; He’s just trying to let us
to it to gently stroke it. In other words, it was as if she were
know what we can handle. I know that His strength is made
trying to scratch her palm without using her empty hand. I
perfect in our weakness, and He helps us to grow in grace if
was terrified that the bee would soon come to its senses
we allow Him to.
28 // July 2021
Philippians 4:13 (KJV).
