Be Happy

Jillian, you broke my heart a little bit at dinner tonight, when unsolicited you said, "Mom, I wish you were happy like you are in that picture on my wall. I feel like you are always mad at me and yelling and I want you to be happy". Just let that sink in a minute. My 5 year old has determined her mother is 'unhappy' and that she is the cause of it. No, no, no. Both statements are false, you see, but that's really irrelevant isn't it? What matters is her perception. I hung my head in shame for a minute while Matt explained that we are having a hard time with the girls not listening to us right now, and then I realized I had a chance to teach her a couple of important life lessons: 1--each person is in charge of their own happiness, and 2--it is not her job to 'make' someone happy, and 3--frustration and temporary irritation does not equal unhappiness. I hope I got my point across, but it's clear I need to label my emotions better for her and reinforce the teachings of tonight often. I think she must have had a lot on her mind tonight (she's so much like Matt in this regard--she acts totally fine and then suddenly she drops a bomb on you that came out of nowhere), because after this happiness discussion (which I felt like was emotionally enough for one meal) she proclaimed that she is concerned that Adrienne doesn't love God. She asked Adrienne if she loved Jesus, and Adrienne classically replied, "No" (which REALLY got Jillian concerned). Adrienne then went on to say, "He called us babies!" She was really referring to some kid at the RAC who apparently teased my girls and called them 'babies' the other day, guess she thought his name was Jesus. After this declaration of a lack of love for the big guy, Jillian launched into a speech about how she is really good at telling other people about Jesus, and that she would like to tell Adrienne about him right now so that she would understand. Bless your heart, Jillian, you did such a great job of explaining the gospel to your sister--you had the main points just right..."Adrienne, Jesus loves you and he wants you to love him. If you love him all you have to do is ask him into your heart and you can be with him forever. Forever! You can go to heaven someday. It's that easy. Ella thinks Jesus has prepared a candy store for her in heaven. Some people don't love God and don't believe in him. I don't know why they don't believe. I really just want to know why God created the world. Don't you? No one knows. I guess that's OK. We will find out someday." Deep thoughts for sure. And then...."If you don't go to heaven, then you have to go to the place that's really hot and where people are really unhappy forever. It's called hail." I hung my head for the second time during the meal at that moment. This time it was to stifle my giggle of that little slip up. God bless you, Jillian, and your sweet concerned heart. I think God is going to use you in a big way someday.

The picture that began this discussion, and apparently embodies the vision of a happy mom to Jillian. I can only believe that she doesn't see that smile on my face enough these days. Heavy, heavy sigh.