it bit me!

(originally posted 12/10/07)

A week ago, I was watching Seth for a couple of hours and I also had Ashtyn and Maddox. Doug & Jill were at a meeting and Brandon was at a board meeting at the church. Maddox was winding down for bed and Seth and Ashtyn were playing in his room, so I took the opportunity to get some housework done. I was in the kitchen doing dishes when Seth and Ashtyn made their way into the kitchen and were playing behind me. Suddenly, I hear Ashtyn screaming at the top of his lungs and turn around to see tears streaming down his face. He was bright red and was holding his hand up toward me through blood-curdling screams. Seth had backed up against the wall and was standing wide-eyed staring at what was happening. Of course, I immediately picked up Ashtyn and started asking over and over "What happened?" "What's wrong?" I finally composed myself enough to actually look at the hand that he was still reaching toward me and noticed a brown substance covering his fingers and hand. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what had happened and could only understand Ashtyn repeating "It bit me!" over and over while still screaming and crying. Only then did I look over where the boys had been playing and noticed there was a lit candle close to the edge of the counter. Apparently, Ashtyn had reached up onto the counter and stuck his entire hand deep into the melted wax of the candle...I felt horrible. I rushed him to the bathroom and soaked a washcloth in cool water and wrapped up his hand. I already felt like a horrible mom and the biggest fear running through my mind was that I would pull away that washcloth to find that skin had been burned or, even worse that skin would be peeling off or blistered. Luckily the only thing I saw when I removed the washcloth was a perfect little hand. I held Ashtyn for several minutes, in my lap, stroking his hair and whispering that everything would be alright. He slowly stopped crying and eventually got down to go play again. Later that night, after Seth had gone home and I was putting Ashtyn to bed, he looked up at me and said "Mommy, when my hand was hurting you said everything was fine!" and he gave me a hug. My heart melted. It meant so much that my little son had so much faith in me. He hung on every word I said. When I told him "everything was okay" he believed me and didn't question me. Simply because I'm his mom he knew that I was telling him the truth and that I would protect him no matter what! 

Lesson Learned? As soon as Ashtyn said to me "you said everything was fine" it hit me like a ton of bricks...that's how I should be with God. When I'm hurt or something goes wrong in my life it's okay to crawl up into my Father's lap and let him stroke my hair and hold me and whisper that "everything will be okay". I further realized, later, that Ashtyn never did understand what had happened to him that night. He kept repeating "It bit me!" not that he had stuck his hand in a candle. He knew only that he felt pain and needed his mommy. It doesn't matter sometimes what has happened to us and it further doesn't matter if we understand what has happened to us, what matters is that God sees the problem and knows exactly how to fix it. Even if the only "fix" is some "lap-time" with the Lord.