Thrashing Temper Tantrum

Tonight I had the pleasure of watching my two-year old daughter as she carried on and thrashed her body all over the kitchen floor in an all-out,-academy-award-performance-temper-tantrum. This beautiful child turned from lovely to Lucifer in all of about two seconds. This was not my daughter, the one whom I often wondered if she was a deaf-mute, the one people always asked me "does she ever make a sound," the one I have scheduled for a speech evaluation...how could this be that same precious silent child?

The tighter I tried to hold her...the louder the screams. The more I tried to reason with her...the greater the flailing. The more I gave her the rod...the more ferocious she became. And softly, slowly I kept repeating and rocking "You have peace...you have peace...you have peace..."

And then all of a sudden, for just a nano-second, I saw myself in her and the Lord in me. As her screams became a distance noise, my rebellion in the sight of the Lord was magnified in my own eyes. Her rebellion now didn't look so bad. After all she's two years old--at least she has an excuse.

While still holding her, I quickly threw away the excuses that I wanted to use as fig leaves to cover my exposed skin. Thoughts, statements, attitudes swam before my eyes as a racing river carries the unattached leaves floating on the surface. In this moment of nakedness, I could not deny the accusations of these swarming sentiments. I could only embrace them, cast them into the river, and grab on to the solid rock.

As my daughter's cries began to subside, so did my pride. He had been holding me tight the whole time...I just couldn't feel his arms until I sat still.