by Renee Coates Scheidt

"Don't cry Mama. We'll help you clean it up," my 11 and 8 year old daughters said as they threw their arms around my waist. We stared in disbelief at vegetable soup splattered over the stove, countertops, walls and floor. The pressure-relief plug on the cooker had become clogged. When I took off the top, the bubble-up pressure flug up bits of tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, peas and beef everywhere. The mess would take a long time to clean up, and my plans for supper were blown away as well. Only a few hours before, the day had gotten off to a bad start when my coffee maker had overflowed.

Stay calm, Renee, I told myself. No big deal. You can handle this.

But there also had been the day before, when my oldest child, Nicole, declared she was ready to go back to school after being sick. I worried about her all morning, so I went to school and had lunch with her. I was to be gone that evening, to lead a young-widows seminar in a neighboring town, and I had to make sure she was okay.

I raced home from the seminar that night, anxious to check on Nicole. Blue lights appeared in my rear view mirror and I headed toward me. Oh no! I thought. How fast was I going? The unsympathetic officer let me know exactly how fast as he wrote the ticket. Through hot tears, I drove home.

A sick daughter, a speeding ticket, coffee all over the floor and vegetable soup flung through the kitchen - all within a few short hours. What else could go wrong? It was only 9 o'clock on what should have been leasurely Saturday morning. But I felt like a pressure cooker myself, ready to explode.

Together Nicole, Tara and I cleaned up the mess. "Girls, you go play now," I said "I'll finish up here."

Several minutes later, I heard their voices calling, "Mama, come in here. We have something to show you."

Dropping the dishcloth, I headed toward the sound of their voices. They met me in the hallway with eyes aglow. "Go look on your bed, Mama. We made something for you."

At the center of the bed, I spied a note written on blue construction paper, atop a treasure-wrapped package. The treasure fell off when I picked it up, revealing a small bag Tara had made from scraps of material. Then I read the note, little hands had printed: "'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those that love Him' [Romans 8:28]. So Mom, keep on trusting in Him, and you'll do fine because we did this for a promise. Love, Nicole and Tara."

It was the verse I had often quoted to them after their father's death by suicide 8 years earlier, the verse we had clung to in the dark days when I didn't know how we would make it, the verse that had been the anchor of our souls as we made our way through the valley of the shadow of death.

Tears flowed in frustration and joy: frustration at myself for allowing circumstances to get the best of me and joy in seeing the impact that God had had in my children's lives. Perhaps things weren't as bad as they had appeared earlier. Perhaps the trying circumstances of the recent hours were worth the prize. For what greater joy can there be than to see God's Word springing forth in the lives of our children - giving back what we have given them?