It came in the frayed hour after bedtime.  The minions were not in bed.  It had been out. of. control. Paint splattered across the kitchen.  The floor scattered with 100’s of pieces of paper, my four-year-old yelling “You Fool!” (where does she get this stuff?)

I could. not. take. it. anymore.

M snuggled close, and with tears rolling down told me,

“I never knew a 4-year-old could be such a threat. I never knew.”

She told me how hard it was to have a brother and a sister.

How she doesn’t like it when her brother hits her in the face or pulls her hair [this is involuntary from his athetoid cerebral palsy], how her little sister is too much, how life is too hard, how difficult life is for her.

And yeah, you might think it’s no biggie, she’s only 6. But 6 or 60, your heart, your inner struggle, is no less important.

The words sting, and I wonder, what do I have left?  Lord, I’m owed some mindless TV, right about now, right?

Just when I thought the last drop of me was squeezed out, He poured more in. She cuddled close.

Loving wasn’t in talking away her concerns.

Love was in the listening.

Love was in the silence, in the holding.

in the little things comes big love.

Loving her filled, and in the filling I loved.