Babysitting

It was one of those times. Those wonderful, frustrating babysitting experiences that come just when you think that you really know what you're doing.

Don't get me wrong, I love babysitting, as I've said before. I always have. Many different babysitting adventures have left me feeling drained and stretched, as I've vented to my mother on the way home, but never once have I regretted doing it. Never once have I walked away loving the children that I babysat less. Never once has my tiredness caused me to forget that caring for children is my love and my calling --- the highest calling that I can conceive of.

I think its good for me to be reminded just how much I still have to learn. Just how incompetent I am even in doing the littlest things like taking care of some friend's kids for a few hours, without the grace of the Lord. I need Him to be my teacher. I need Him to give grace and strength and wisdom to me. I need Him to remind me how much my behavior towards Him is often very similar to the behavior of the kids I babysit (including my own little twins).

New Idea:

I know that most of the people (all like, 5 of them) who occasionally read my blog are teenage girls and that you also have many babysitting stories and opportunities. What if we made the personal commitment to pray for grace and wisdom every time before we embark on another babysitting adventure? What if people who we don't even know started thinking to themselves "I want to make sure that we get a Christian girl to babysit our kids tonight. It seems like something different happens when it is one of them"? What if babysitting became, rather than another chance to make money, another part of our mission field? Maybe babysitting would come to have a whole new meaning ---- mentoring.