Last week, I heard the most pitiful, heart melting cry from the other side of the cash register.
Coming from just below height level of the counter, a plea for mercy from a four-year-old girl. “But. Mom. I…really..love….I reeeeally wanted.that..mooovie..”
Just as straightforward as possible, her mother replied , ” I’m sorry. I want to get that for you but you didn’t listen.”
As they finished checking out, this sweet little girl just let it all out. Sobs and snivels to outright bawling. Clearly she had some attachment to this movie. Her world was shattered.
There are parents who might have caved in. But this mom held her composure, even though it was obvious it hurt her just as much!
“I’m sorry” she said again. “I know you really wanted that. Maybe next time if you behave.”
More wailing as she ushered her daughter out the door.
Just like that they left. And just like that I was shown how the ultimate proof of love a parent has for their child can be to not give them what they want.
In a similar way maybe, my Heavenly Father delights in giving me the desires of my heart. But more than that, there are prayers that lovingly and tenderly go unanswered, or things that he painstakingly takes away… so that he forms my heart, instead, to have the right desires.
I’m trying to be mindful that it is there, in the unfailing plans of my Father, where I will experience real abundance.
“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
Matthew 7: 9-11 KJV
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