“Mommy, I just throwed up,” she tells me as she stumbles out of her room at naptime.
Oh dear. Sure enough, she threw up all over her bed. Her pillows and blankets all need to be washed. Right in the middle of that mess is her favorite plush doll, Elsa.
Elsa goes everywhere with my daughter. She has had her since she turned two and has barely let her out of her sight. Now she’s covered in vomit.
My baby girl watches as I pull off her bedding and make a careful pile on the floor. “What are you doing?” She asks.
“I have to wash everything that got dirty,” I tell her.
Her face changes from mildly curious to absolutely horrified when she sees Elsa land on that pile.
“Not Elsa! She can’t go in the wash!” She pulls Elsa from the pile and hugs her to herself. The tears start running down her cheeks. She is terrified that Elsa won’t come back from the laundry.
“It’s okay, the washing machine is just like a water park for Elsa. She’ll have a great time in there!”
I’m not sure she fully believes me. I hold out my hand and wait for her to place Elsa in my care. She is still hesitant but finally agrees to let me wash her beloved toy. Elsa is carefully placed in my hand with a tearful plea to be gentle with her.
Fast forward two hours and Elsa emerges from the dryer intact and the cleanest I have seen her in a long time. I re-braid her hair (which had fallen out long before the vomit incident) and give her to my baby girl. There is a beautiful reunion between girl and doll and it happens just in time for bedtime. All is once again right in my daughter’s world.
Sometimes we make a mess of things; either through our actions or just the fact that we’re human living in an imperfect world. God has to come in and clean up. It’s not always easy to let him. If we give our marriage or our child or our job to God we have to trust that he will take care of it just as we would.
Spoiler alert, he takes care of it better.
It’s not an easy thing to remember. We hold our messed up situation close and instead of handing it to God. We imagine way worse scenarios and then convince ourselves that the thing we fear may happen will actually happen. We go to other people and complain to them about it. We let the worry consume us. We snuggle that vomit covered plush doll to our hearts and refuse to let it go.
After all, why would God want to fix it?
Why should I care about a little plush doll? Because it matters to my daughter. God cares because it matters to us. He loves us and he’s not going to let anything destroy our favorite Elsa doll.
Best of all, God doesn’t do anything halfway. He takes care of us and cleans us up, making us (and our situation) better than before… and even adds a new braid.
| Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 |