I Love You...You're Soooo Mean!

Today one of my daycare students declared how much she loved me. (Please dont think that I can't spell).... She is 3 going on 33 years old so I will have to decipher her words. She said " I love you teacher....you are soooo sweet all buhcept (except) when you are soooooo mean." "You are sooo mean just like the Green Witch on the Witch of All (Wizard of Oz). I said "Well, what do I do that makes me so mean like the Witch of All". Then she ran off a grocery list. She crossed her arms, knitted her eyebrows together, stomped her little foot and said angrily "You always make me wash my hands after I go potty....You make me take a nap eewyday (everyday)....You make me clean up my toys and do all my coolwuk (schoolwork)" you are sooo mean. After this bold declaration, I really had to compose myself because I definitely wanted to go in another room and laugh my head off. I put my game face on and I gently let her know that all the things I do that she thinks are mean, are things that I am doing because I love her. I talked to her about why her hands need to be cleaned, and how it is healthy for her to have a time to rest each day. I talked to her about how she is becoming a big girl now and that she wasn't able to put her toys away when she was just a baby and how babies can't even do schoolwork....but that doing her schoolwork was helping her to get smarter everyday. "Now see how much I love you" I said. "Yeah" she said, you are that nuther (other) Witch on the Witch of All...that gooder one". So I thanked her for the compliment. "Yeah, she said "I love you teacher, you are sooo sweet". "Well I am so glad you saw the light" I said. "Huh" she said looking puzzled. "Never mind, go and play" I said.

As I sat there in the classroom, I began to ponder how many of us have good friends in our lives. Friends who loves us when we are right and when we are just plain wrong. True friends who can speak into our lives and tell us when our poop stinks and how to wash the poop off of our hands without us thinking they are sooooo mean. How many of us have mentors or pastors that we will ALLOW to tell us when they see us running the red lights in life without thinking that they are soooo mean?

How many of us actually let God take control of our lives and tell us what to do and how to live? He gave us the ten commandments as a starting point. The whole bible is God's how- to manual for happiness in our lives yet when he says not to do such and such or so and so, even though it is for our own good, we get mad and show God through our blantant disobedience that he is sooooo mean, when all he is trying to do is keep us safe, healthy, whole and cause us to grow up. Just like my student, why is it that we sometimes don't recognize true love? Why do we mistake boundaries made out of love to keep us safe, for meaness?

If you are blessed enough to have even just one true friend or a pastor or a mentor who can speak into your life and tell you the truth in love, then realize how rare this is and how blessed you are. But most importantly, if you have made the decision to let God take control of your life without accusing him of being sooo mean, then you have just allowed yourself to be LOVED. You have decided that God is not the Witch of All but he is THE GOD OF ALL!!!!!