This morning was a little rough.  But it didn’t have to be.

At promptly 6:30 I tried to wake my daughter as we have the last two mornings.  She is like her Mama.  Independent, stubborn, and NOT a morning person.  I wonder if it would be bad parenting to start giving her coffee in the mornings, you know, just a little something to help her through it.  (Calm down, I’m just kidding).

I really like my coffee though.  I like it so much, that I usually bring my mug along as is for the morning school ride.

We still haven’t received our freight from moving to Hawaii from the mainland.  The lack of to go cups was a problem this morning, because my mug was a little too full, as you can tell from the coffee down the side.  You should have seen my car! There was coffee everywhere.  Which I laughed at. Because laughing is better than cursing, especially in front of the kiddos.  Except my son was not happy because the only thing I could find to clean the huge puddles of coffee all over my console were his favourite dinosaur pajama pants.

Anyways, I tried waking Miss Natalie up this morning to which I was responded something like “I hate school, I don’t want to wake up!”

“Well, we can go back to homeschooling then,” I won’t lie, our struggle with mornings was a huge motivator for me to homeschool.  Mornings never seem easy for us, no matter what routine I try to establish.

“No!” She said and started stirring, but still not as quickly as I would have liked.  So, from that moment, until literally the moment we walked out the door my daughter fought me on every single thing, and it came back to bite her in the butt by the time we left.  Every time I tried to help her prepare for the day she gave me attitude or resisted my counsel.  I tried to help her get her gym clothes, she told me to stop, that she could do it, and twenty minutes later she came downstairs in the wrong uniform, so I made her go change.  I tried to ask her what I could make her for breakfast and she rolled her eyes and said she would do it herself.  I tried to ask her what she wanted packed for lunch and she gave me attitude, so finally I told her pack her own lunch.  By the time she came downstairs ready to pack lunch and make breakfast, there were ten minutes to get out the door and she was upset that she had so much to do still.  And she just kept giving me the ‘tude.  Like seriously? I am trying to help you, baby girl.

This isn’t a post to pick on my daughter, I promise.

This was Natalie 3 and a half years ago.  She looks and tries to be older, but she is still as impressionable as back then. (And usually, just as sweet!)

You see, I realized something in that moment.  I could have yelled at her to get it together (trust me, I came close), grabbed the boys and waited in the car, and let her go to school hungry, OR I could take a moment to understand what was going on.

She was resisting my help.  Something in her heart had an issue with my guidance.  Call it rebellion, call it mommy issues, call it stubbornness, call it what you will.  But I chose in that moment to point it out and try to correct her, because in those stressful, borderline psychotic moments is when the real lessons are taught, whether we like it or not.

Those are the moments that not only give us opportunity to strengthen our own character, but give us opportunity to teach our little ones, potentially life-long lessons.

One of the lessons here was obviously that trying to do everything on our own ultimately hurts us.  Friends, you don’t have to say no to help.  You don’t have to take on the world by yourself.  You don’t have to face it alone.  Lean on the people that God put in your path, allow them to know you and love you and to be brave and strong with you.  Today, it might just be getting ready for the day.  But tomorrow it could be much bigger.  Let’s let go of the fear and trust issues, and learn to tap into the love and power that surrounds us.

My hope for you this weekend is that you can have eyes and hearts open to those around you and say yes to open arms, literally and metaphorically speaking.

You don’t have to do it alone.