independence

Ah, yes, sunshine abounds! Oh glorious sunshine! The only reason I am indoors is because it's naptime. When nap is over, it's back out for more fun in the sun.

This week my brave little girl decided she still needed her mommy.
We went to the park for some good fun on the "side" (slide). E was all about the "big" ones. Last summer she loved the smaller ones, but not now. She is "big." So I let her adventure to the point of even climbing all the way up, sitting herself down and then taking off. She wanted to do it all herself, so I stood right behind her. But on one try down a big slide she didn't quite sit just right and bumped her lip. She cried and ran to mommy's "huggy" and decided the small slides might just be fun too.

It's hard on a mom to know how much independence to give. I don't want her to bump her lip, or bump anything else either. But she wants to do things herself, and sometimes the best way for her to know she's not quite ready is to let her try it on her own.

Aren't we the same? Sometimes God allows us to fall so that we can learn from our failures. Yet unlike an earthly parent, He knows the outcome before the beginning. He allows us to be put through the fire so that we can come out as gold.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jeus Christ. - I Peter 1:6-7