God and Chocolate Milk

My son is four years old and a chocoholic. Especially when it comes to chocolate milk. After he got off baby formula, I was concerned about his nutrition, but didn't want to pay for the expensive "second step" formulas (nothing against them, they are great, but we ARE on a pastor's salary after all). At the time, our good friend and my sometimes co-bible study leader Brian Patz was also our pediatrician. I discussed my concerns with him, and he told me he gave his kids Carnation Instant Breakfast (which was more expensive per unit than kid vitamins, but a lot less expensive than formula). So I bought a can of chocolate flavored instant breakfast, mixed it with my son's milk, and thus began his love of all things milk and chocolate. For him, chocolate milk makes everything better. If he falls and skins a knee, here comes the chocolate milk. If he doesn't have a nap and is whining or even having a meltdown, here comes the chocolate milk. It is the miracle worker for his temperament.

All of this is to impress to you what a crisis it is when we run out of chocolate for our milk. We went out of town for New Year's and have been back for two days. I have desperately been trying to avoid going to the grocery store until the kids go back to school tomorrow (HALLELUJAH!). We ran out of chocolate mix last night, and my son hasn't known what to do with himself. Fortunately I kept the daughter of a good friend today since her mother is a teacher and had meetings to day, so she distracted him somewhat. However, after she left I realized that even though I'm glad school starts tomorrow, I had nothing to pack for their lunches. So I broke down and packed everyone up for the trip to the store, promising myself that I was only going to get VERY necessary things to tide us over till tomorrow. One of those things was chocolate mix. After we got home, I mixed some for my son, who drank it faster than a man dying of thirst in the desert, and then crawled up in my lap and said "Mommy, thank you for my chocolate milk. I love it so much, and I love you. Thanks Mom."

And it occurred to me...how often do we say that to God? I'll be the first one to admit that my prayer life is lacking. For a pastoral family, God IS the family business. It is so hard sometimes to remember that we should not only be about God's business, but maintaining and improving our relationship with the giver of all the good things in our lives. Most Sundays, it is a frenzied, 'hurry we are late' morning where all I care about is that my kids are dressed and I'm on time to make sure the nursery has help, then rush in to hear Mike's sermon, while going back and forth to make sure everything is going okay behind the scenes. After all, I typed the sermon, right? Do I really need to hear the whole thing again? Umm, yes. God speaks through those who speak his Word. An outline is all fine and good, but the reason there is only an outline is so that the Holy Spirit has some wiggle room! And that is just on Sunday morning. The rest of the week is the same kind of crazy as any other person has. I used to be so good at taking time to pray and study the Word, but that was BC ("before children"). Now I have kids, school, kids, homework, and the occasional cooking and cleaning incident. And somewhere in there I have to squeeze in being a wife too. There's no time for myself and certainly no time for talking to God. I'm so exhausted by the end of the night! I've tried praying at night before bed, but I fall asleep. I've tried when I wake up, but too soon and the kids are waking up and we are running late. So maybe I'm not superwoman. Maybe all I can do right now in this moment is say "Thank you God, for everything you've given me. I love my life and I love you. Thanks, God". And it's a start.