Are you there God? It's me Little Mama.

Emma Mae had a full on temper tantrum that lasted about 20 minutes today when I put her down for her nap. She didn't want to take her nap and she didn't care when I told her she would feel better after a rest. She begged me to lay in bed with her, but when I did she lay there sniffling and crying and telling me to let her out of her room. So I told her that if she didn't stop whining I was going to leave the room. That elicited a ten minute monologue of all of the reasons why she couldn't stop whining and crying. Sheesh.

Through all of that I started thinking how parenting these children was surely a much smaller scale of God trying to parent all of us. I wonder how many times He has thought "Wow. What is she whining about now? And why can't she stop? She prayed for me to give her these children for ten years and now that she has them she continues to complain."

I began to think that all my children want from me is me. They want my time. This morning Jake wanted me to be Darth Vader to his Luke Sky Walker. He was so happy for that fifteen minute block of my undivided attention where we fought to the death and saw how good wins over evil. Every single time. However, to get those fifteen minutes he had to wait for me to check my e-mail, clean up the breakfast dishes and put on a load of laundry.

I feel like that's how I treat God most of the time too. And all He really wants is me. My time. Shouldn't I feel honored that He would want to know me at all? Should He really have to wait for me to not be busy?

So, I started thinking about how a phone call from God to me would go. It would probably start with God wanting to know how I was doing and me asking Him to hold on a minute while I clean up the dog vomit, fold some clothes and try to get the kids to sleep because goodness knows I can't talk on the phone when the kids are awake! And then when I finally got a chance to talk to God I would probably start off asking Him to do all sorts of things for me like give us more money, give me more patience with the kids, give me more friends, heal everyone I know who is sick and make my daughter eat vegetables.

Wow. Sounds kind of like my children talking to me everyday! They come at me from the minute they wake up until the minute they go to bed wanting something from me or needing me to do something for them. It's exhausting.

It's a good thing that God is too big for exhaustion because waiting for us to fit Him into our lives and then whining and complaining the whole time about our lives would probably be more than He could take. He should just tune us out.

Last night after I got Emma Mae out of the bathtub she asked me to sit with her on the couch and watch Scooby Doo. Now, I've seen Scooby Doo more times than I care to admit and I could die happy without watching anymore. But my little girl wanted to spend time cuddled up with me on the couch so this time I obliged. I put aside the laundry and the dishes and I sat with her on the couch. And instead of watching Scooby she looked at me and put her little hands on the side of my face and said "Mommy, I love you sooo much! You're the most pretty, funny, silly girl I know and you are my favorite girl in the whole world!" Melted my heart. Because for the first time that day instead of wanting or needing or taking from me she praised me. She loved me. She told me the things that she likes about me.

Isn't that what God really wants from us? A time in the day when we stop complaining, stop asking and just honor Him for who He is and for what He has done? So at the end of my imaginary phone call with God I hope I would tell Him good job on creating the world! That opposable thumb thing is awesome! I hope I would thank Him for making the oceans with all of its wonders. I hope I would tell Him that He is the most awesome, grace giving, merciful being in the universe and that I love Him above all else.