Living Inspired.

"It's Because I Love You."

I know this will probably be a shock to some of you, but Ukraine has had little snow in the past few months. Unfortunately, I missed most of the snow showers while I was home in the United States. Bummer. During January, we had some light snow...but what good is that? If we haven't had snow, we have had lots of ice. This means the kids (and myself) can run as fast as possible and slide across the driveway. Living on the edge, people. It's funtastic except for when it melts. Hello muddy roads! 

I dreaded taking Isabella, Sneezhana, and Yula to sadik this morning due to the yucky weather. They are precious little things but goodness they walk like turtles. Add that with janknasty roads=about a 45 minute walk to school. Since it was drizzling outside, we all took umbrellas. I thought to myself, 'Okay, it's all good in the hood (it's one of those days where I'm going to use phrases that were popular in middle school. Welcome to my life.). We all have umbrellas and we're going to have a nice little stroll to sadik." Wrong. 

We're not even 5 minutes from home when Yula starts complaining about how her umbrella is broken. When I say broken, I mean half the umbrella is just wire. Let me take a moment here to explain that Yula breaks everything she owns. Before we left home, Archie explained to her that she would still have to take it to school even if it was broken because it was her umbrella. Anyway, this little problem didn't fly with Yula. She closed the umbrella and just carried it, letting rain get all over her. This didn't fly with me.

I told the girls that they need to carry umbrellas so they won't get wet and won't get sick. Even though I'm not their Mama, I still feel a great responsibility for their well being. Even if that means carrying a broken umbrella over your head to keep from getting wet. Yula was trying to be a sneaky snake and would walk behind me so I wouldn't see that she had closed her umbrella. I had to stop twice and tell her to put her umbrella back up. The second time I addressed the issue, I looked at Yula in the eyes and asked her if she wanted a spanking. She shook her head no.

So we're all walking and talking, when I turn around to check on the girls (you know, making sure they weren't being attacked by a goose or something). Yula had her umbrella closed and was carrying to beside her. I stopped in my tracks, set my umbrella to the side and walked over to her. I took her hand and spanked it. While she stood there and cried, I explained to her that she did not listen to what I said. As weird as it is, I was deeply hurt that I had to do that to Yula. I got a taste of what it feels like to be a parent. It wasn't fun.

On the rest of the way to sadik, I recalled the many times my parents would sit down with me after I got spanked and said to me, "It's because I love you." I didn't really understand that phrase when I was a kid. I thought that my parents couldn't really love me if they had just popped by behind with a wooden spoon. Now I understand.

Even though these girls are not my own, I still love them enough to protect them in every way I can. I even considered just letting Yula have her way and get wet. However, that would probably be on of the most selfish things I could do. In no way would I want her or the other girls to get sick and be miserable. Before Yula went into her classroom at school, she wrapped her arms around my legs and told me goodbye. Right before I walked out the door to head back home, she ran back to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. At that moment, I felt like what I had done to her was right.

*Whether I want to admit or not, the Lord is preparing me to be a parent.