Answered prayer - be careful what you ask for

Okay so a little back ground for this post - We had our home teachers from church come over a couple Sundays ago and were talking to us about talents. They asked the kids what talents they had and then asked them what talents Jared and I had. Jared got "good at basketball and baseball , take care of people, firefighter'' and a couple others. When they asked about me -  I'm thinking " taking care of you, cooking, playing games, reading to you,staying up all night with you when you're sick or have a nightmare, going through all the pain when I was in labor to bring you here! ( okay maybe thats not a talent but they better appreciate it) , blah, blah blah" all the stuff we moms do selflessly everyday. That's not what I got - I just got dead silence. Then Bailee says " cleaning" - okay I can take that one. But then Raden pipes up and says " I would have to say yelling"    AAAAHHHH!!!! Seriously? I would have taken the dead silence! Of course Jared is on the other side of the couch busting up laughing and the home teachers are graciously trying hard to not smile too much but I am completely mortified and embarrassed. Then along with those feelings comes an even stronger one of complete shame- like someone had just completely stabbed me though the heart. It hurt - a lot. Mostly because I know that I do yell too much. I like to think of it as raising my voice when the kids dont listen but I guess they think of it differently. Of all the things that I hope my kids remember me by, yelling wasn't exactly on my list of hopes. And it hurt because I had been trying - really hard. So my goal was to pray each morning for one thing - to help me not to react. To ask  Heavenly Father to help me to slow down and look at each situation and then act instead of just immediately reacting to what ever was going on. So yesterday morning I said my morning prayers and included that plea. A little while later I was at the computer trying to get some bills finished after breakfast and Lexi was just starting to get breakfast - we are constantly waiting on that girl. So I hear the refrigerator open and then a loud thunk and then Bailee yelling ( guess I know where she gets it) at Lexi to not just stand there but to pick it up because it is getting everywhere. Okay- I decide not to go in there right away so I can take a second to not react. It doesnt help that Bailee comes running in telling that there is milk all over the kitchen. So I take a breath and then slowly go into the kitchen. On the floor is a once full gallon of milk that is now split in half with all of the milk all over the kitchen. And I mean, floor, counters, walls, cuboards, oven, - you name it and milk was on it. But I looked and Lexi and she was starting to cry - she does a good fake one, but this was a real one - her little lip was trembling and she  felt really bad about it. Being the middle child she really does get left out pretty often ( not little enough to really have to be taken care of but too little to do everything by herself) and she said that she just wanted to be big and try to get the milk by herself but she dropped it getting it down.

Trust me - this picture does not even begin to do justice.

I was able to not react. I held her and told her that it was okay - that she was more important than the milk and that the floor needed to be mopped anyway - it really didnt, Jared just did it the day before, but that was what I kept telling myself. I also did the whole - say " I wont get mad" 10 times because in reality it wasnt something to get mad over. That actually works by the way. So an hour and a half later the kitchen was clean - again - and Lexi was feeling better.

So the moral of this long post was not to say look at the good job i did - but to say that prayers are answered. I have been praying for a long time for help to not react to things and I think that I just expected that someday I would just get handed this great gift of patience and long suffering and I was getting a little frustrated that Heavenly Father was taking so long to give me this gift. Then when this all happened I realized  - hello - that this was an opportunity  - one of many  - given to me to LEARN patience and long suffering. When we ask for something, we are expected to do our part and work hard. Then Heavenly Father will make up the difference. I know that I could never make it all the way by myself. Now,  I know that spilled milk is not a big deal. But it opened my eyes to how Heavenly Father answers prayers. SO - be careful what you pray for because you will probably be given the opportunity to learn it.