Tadpoles and Frogs

We have been so busy, and my migraines have been numerous, so I haven't had much time to post. I marvel at the changes that have taken place in Jule in the past few weeks. He is now crawling all over the place and pulling up on anything he can get his chubby hands on. I told him last night that he would now be considered "cool" because of the way his hair looks (if he were only in high school). He always gives me a glowing smile when I talk to him.

To me, he looks like a 3-year-old and not my little 11-month-old baby. Last night, I was on the phone with my mom, and he was pulling up to the couch, then he would let go knowing full well that he would fall, and he would giggle as his little butt hit the floor. I was laughing at him so hard, which probably encouraged him to do it more!

Noly is becoming such a little mommy. She wraps her kitty and doggy in blankets and kisses them over and over. She puts them to bed in her toddler bed and makes us all be quiet because they are "sleeping." I didn't know how seriously she took this until her little friend, Jade, unknowingly got her kitty out of bed. She was so upset because she needed her sleep! If she only took her own naps this seriously!

The past week, I have been thinking a lot about tadpoles and frogs. When we went to hear Marty sing, Noly dipped a little coffee cup into the lake and pulled out around 10 tadpoles. She filled the cup with grass and weeds...all the lovely things that she imagined the tadpoles would like. We tried to leave the cup behind, but she noticed before we could drive away. So, Kevin gave her the coffee cup, and we prayed that the muddy-water-filled cup would not spill in the truck on the mile drive back to the hotel. It didn't.

On the way to the hotel, I explained to her that these were tadpoles and that tadpoles became frogs just like caterpillars became butterflies. We put the little cup on the dining room table in our hotel, and Noly looked in the cup multiple times a day to check on her "little swimmers." I figured that she just really liked to look at them until she asked me on the last day why they weren't frogs. Ohhh...so all this time, she was looking to see if they had become frogs yet. I told her it wasn't time yet for them to be frogs and that they would be "little swimmers" for a little longer.

When I was singing last weekend, it really hit me that we are like that with God so many times. We keep waiting and waiting on something to happen, and we ask Him WHEN it is going to happen...like I did when we tried for years to have children. I believed the "frogs" would come someday, but I wanted to know when, and I wanted it to be soon...in my time. When I had Jule, all of the "tadpoles" were gone (infertility, miscarriage, high-risk pregnancy), and what emerged were my little "frogs." In His time, I had my little ones in my arms and in my home. And now, when I find myself asking Him "when," I have to remember that only He determines the timing, and that His plans for me far exceed the plans I concoct in my own mind. I'm going to try to enjoy the time of tadpoles in my life, knowing that God will turn them into frogs in His time...new things will awaken with new life and purposes and promises will come to pass as His design for our lives unfolds.

Habakkuk 3:17-19, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. For the director of music. On my stringed instruments."

By the way, we left the tadpoles in the hotel room. We hid them behind a little advertisement sign. Noly never did notice : )