I asked my pastor last week, tongue-in-cheek, if we could please stop picking devotional/sermon topics that smack me upside the head. This week’s topic, as you know, is forgiveness. I had the opportunity this morning to show forgiveness when I was grumpy and didn’t want to.

Let’s begin at about 11:30pm last night, when I finally came to a stopping point on my term paper and decided to go to bed. Granted, it was my own fault for staying up so late, but once I went to bed, I had a difficult time going to sleep. (It couldn’t have been the diet soda I’d been drinking all night?!?) I finally drifted off a little past midnight, I suppose.

Then, at 2:15am, I was woken up by the soft click of a door opening and closing somewhere in the house. (As an aside, what is it about moms’ ears such that the slightest off-kilter sound can wake us up from a deep sleep?) I listened for a moment,thinking perhaps one of the boys just needed to go to the bathroom. A minute or two later, I heard another door close–this time, not so discreetly–followed by voices chit-chatting.

I was livid. In true Angry Mom fashion, I grabbed my glasses from the bedside and practically stomped down the hallway to investigate. Sure enough, Nos. 1 & 3 were watching tv in the extra bedroom and talking as if it were the middle of the afternoon. I ordered them both back to bed and told No. 1 that he was grounded.

No sooner had I finally started to drift off to sleep again, No. 4 came crying into the room, saying that he was scared. No. 3 must have inadvertently woken him up when he went back to bed. He eventually settled down and went back to sleep. I have no idea what time it was, at this point, but I knew then that it would be a lonnnnng Monday.

[Later] This morning, No. 1 sulked about being grounded, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I was not pleased that he woke up two of his brothers and me. He told me, “Fine, bye,” and walked out to catch the bus. He didn’t even say, “I love you,” and he always says that. 😦

Wouldn’t you know … he missed the bus. He needed a ride to school and I needed to go to work a little early today, so I drove him. We had a chance to talk in the car and start over with both of our attitudes. By the time I dropped him off, we were squared away and ready for a new day. Reconciling with my son over something that should have been a mere frustration but just seemed to compound as the hours passed was a refreshing way to start my day. I’m still tired, though.

(P.S. Idk why the paragraphs keep getting scrunched … I’ve tried adding extra line breaks and even pasting from Word, but it doesn’t seem to help.)