Moments where you feel like a good parent doing good things sometimes don’t come often enough. And then one comes that is so impactful it brings you to tears.
Ivy claimed to be sick this morning. I thought she was making it up until I saw her throw up with my own eyes.
So she stayed home from school. Without any guidance or prompt, she went upstairs on her own and laid down in her bed. This is very un-Ivy like. She was definitely sick.
I got a show setup on a laptop for her so she could lay in bed and relax. I brought it to her, and she didn’t want it, she just wanted to rest. Ivy was definitely sick.
An hour later she came to my room and said she did want a show. We walked back to her room, and I started to get it setup. She said she needed to throw up and inexplicably walked away from her throw up bucket and passed her bathroom down the hall to my bathroom.
Luckily, she made it in time.
She knelt in front of the toilet. She looked so big, her little four-year-old body, already knowing how to properly throw up in a toilet. Any parent can relate to and feel the pain of watching their child throw up.
I held her hair and rubbed her back.
Ivy stood up.
She said, through little sobs and stutters as she caught her breath, “Daddy, I ask Jesus in my bed to help me. Will you pray for me at my bed? I asked Jesus to help me stop throwing up.”
Those words don’t fully capture it. I cannot properly put in words the sweetness, the tenderness, the humility, the vulnerability, the faith, the innocence of what was coming out of Ivy’s mouth. What I put above was roughly what she said. But it was so much more. It was soft, it was gentle, it was pleading.
This pleading was not with adultlike “this needs to get done” energy, but with patient understanding. This request came with complete innocence. Coming from your four-year-old who is normally all chaotic, joyful energy, these calm, sweet moments can be so jarring.
I explained to Ivy that Jesus might help her stop throwing up, but I promised her that even if she didn’t stop throwing up, He would be with her and help her. I told Ivy, “You know when Jesus died for you?” She nodded, as this is something we talk about often. “When He died for you, He felt what you just felt, that hurt and pain and sickness of throwing up, He felt it. So even if you throw up more, He is with you.”
Ivy said, “Even when I get big owies, He feels it.”
I took Ivy back to her room. I put a show on for her to watch. She lay in bed.
How do parents parent without faith?
This parenting thing is hard enough. How could I explain to Ivy that she’s throwing up and in pain and I don’t know why and there’s nothing I can do about it?
In the last couple weeks, my knee has been healed, my daughter with potential hip dysplasia has been blessed (what happens is yet to be seen), and my Ivy has known that even though she’s sick, Jesus is with her and helping her and there’s a reason for it.
How do you raise kids without this?
I don’t know.
The last thing Ivy said during our conversation at the toilet, “Jesus is God, that is why I ask Him for help.”
Jesus is our God. Heavenly Father is our Father. They watch over us. As I sit here with tears in my eyes, my sweet daughter laying in bed suffering with a little tummy ache, writing this out, I’m reminded that Jesus is God. And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know that. It would be so hopeless otherwise.
He died for us, and He knows our pain.
I wish we could all have the faith of a 4-year-old.
No Coincidences 