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Rehearsing Poop

 My grandson. So cute I can hardly stand it. 

BUT

He likes to play with poop. Not any poop he finds. He's quite selective. It's just his own poop that holds such fascination. 
 
When all is quiet in the house for two blessed hours each afternoon, and my daughter is lulled into a sense of peace, this otherwise darling little man, emerges from his room. "Momma, I pooped." There is a trace of guilt in his voice that betrays the fact that he didn't just poop. He pooped and then painted his walls, his floor, his bed, his blankie, and himself with it.
 
Poop happens. It's part of life. The Dowager Lady Grantham said on a recent episode of Downton Abbey that life is a series of trials and hardships. You get through one and then another one and then another one and then...you die. Such an encouraging thought. Yet pretty accurate.

I'm pretty crazy about my grandson, but I'm thinking that I don't want to be like him - at least not in this. I don't want to  rehearse the poop of life. I don't want to paint my walls with pain or smear my troubles down the front of my shirt. I don't want to routinely recount stories in which I'd been wronged or hurt somehow or disappointed. I don't want to keep my poop ever before me.
 
No, I think I'd much rather rehearse God. It's something I've been practicing lately. Instead of jumping in with my wish list when I pray, I start off with a litany of things for which I am thankful - mainly attributes of God such as His faithfulness and kindness and mercy and long-suffering and grace upon grace upon grace and gentleness and the promise that He will never leave me or forsake me. Those are just for starters. I want nothing more than to live the rest of my life with God. In unbroken communion with Him. I want to rehearse Him.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.           Philippians 4:8              
                                                                                                                                     

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