That's a Mouthful!

DON'T look now, Lord!

I don't want You

to see me

standing here with

my big foot

crammed in the mouth.

Don't worry, child.

If I didn't love you

just as much with your

foot in your mouth,

I'd hardly ever get a

chance to love you.

Mothers are often force to utter things other people wouldn't even think. One day I actually heard myself yelling in my hands-on-hip tone of voice, "All right! Who put the fire truck in the toilet?"

A lot of motherly queries seem to be preceded by the weary work, "Who put the...," and end with a scramble of objects so strange they could be a mad Parker Brothers' game of chance.

Over the years, anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the right could have heard me asking who put: the cereal behind the couch? (the ants found it first); the pine codes in my purse (I discovered them during church); the lemon pudding mix in the wading pool? (it was gelling in the corners); the toothpaste on the wall? (it looked like a fluoridated Picasso); the toy dish in the oven? (the flames were leaping out the vent).

Actually, parents should be taught not to ask questions, because either no one did it, or the other guy did it. And if you ever do manage to pin the culpit, you tend to ask why. "Why did you put the rock in the refrigerator?" And then you get an answer: "Because I wanted a cold rock."

It's obvious that parenthood requires carloads of patience. And I could feel reasonably righteous about boisterously losing that patience when the going gets rough, if it weren't for the fact that God has to lavish so much of it on me.

Occasionally, after I've lost my temper at the children, I've heard my heavenly Father patiently asking, "Who put the foot in the mouth?"

By Susan L. Lenzkes