About a year ago, some friends and I decided it would be fun to take our kids to one of those indoor bounce houses. That morning, while I was choosing my kids’ outfits for the day, I had the impression to call my sister. She had just had her second baby, and I knew she was feeling overwhelmed. Sure enough, as soon as I called, she broke into tears. I offered to take her three-year-old daughter with me on my outing, which she gratefully accepted. Then I asked her if she needed a visit right away. Again her answer was in the affirmative. So I threw on a sweatshirt, my hair went up in a ponytail, I left my face clear of any makeup, and threw all my kids’ clothes and hair accessories into a large bag. “I’ll just get them ready at my sister’s house,” I thought. Hmmm, yeah.
Twenty minutes later, as I pulled into her driveway, I looked around me and realized I HAD FORGOTTEN THE BAG OF THE KIDS’ CLOTHES. And I didn’t have time to run back to my house. Which meant I would be taking my kids to the bounce house in their PJs. Luckily, my sister’s daughter is the same age as my son, so she had some gray skinny jeans and a John Deere T-shirt that fit. He was dressed in girls’ clothes, but he was dressed. My daughter would have to stay in her jammies.
When I arrived at the bounce house it was packed. While my friends all showed up looking like they had just got back from the salon, their well-dressed kids in tow, we arrived frazzled and mismatched.
Cue the next disaster.
My son bonked his nose, which started bleeding. That bloody nose, mixed with tears and snot, was now applied to my sweatshirt. And it made him grumpy the rest of the time. At one point he stood at the top of a huge slide, and then screamed for me to help him down. I was nine months pregnant and CLEARLY past the weight limit on the slide, I had to try and talk him down, semi-yelling at him so he could hear me over his own howling. At one point a woman came up and asked me, “So . . . where are you from?” The look and tone of her voice left me knowing she was thinking the local homeless shelter.
Do you remember what started my hectic day?
Ah, yes. I was acting on a prompting to call my sister.
Have you ever had moments like this? When you try to do something good, and something goes wrong? Or someone misinterprets your actions and leaves you questioning the promptings from Heavenly Father?
A couple of weeks ago I read something that I found interesting. In James Ferrell’s new book Falling to Heaven, he says that there’s a difference between being HUMILIATED and being HUMBLE. Humiliation is still a form of pride—worrying about what other people may think of you. (Like the woman at the bounce house who thought I was homeless.) Being humble is knowing that without God, we are nothing. It’s not an absence of self-worth—we’re His children and He loves us. But when we recognize the lack of our own strength, we’re more likely to rely on His.The three of us joke that our sometimes-humiliating experiences in Mercy River keep us humble. But I’m starting to see that’s not entirely true. Heavenly Father’s goal is not to humiliate us, but maybe to help us learn to completely trust in Him. Maybe it’s to teach us to let go of the world’s opinion. Sometimes we receive promptings from the Lord but we hesitate to follow them out of fear of what others may think of us. My mind is filled with examples; walking out of an immoral movie and being ridiculed by friends, standing up to a coworker and losing your job, being shunned from your family for following your faith, reaching out to a neighbor and getting rejected. But just because the outcome isn’t immediately positive, doesn’t mean we were wrong in following that inspiration.
I could’ve chosen to turn my car back around and drive home to retrieve the bag, but I knew my sister needed me more. I knew what my family would look like at the bounce house, but I decided my sister was more important. And in the end, I’m glad I chose to follow that prompting.
Is there a prompting YOU’VE been scared to follow? Are you afraid of what others may think of you?
Chin up! Follow it! You have what it takes, and our Father is rooting for you.