Lessons from Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

"Of course the reason that all the children in our town like Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is because Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle likes them. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle likes children; she enjoys talking to them and best of all they do not irritate her...So you can see that loving children the way she does, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle just naturally understands them even when they are being very difficult." Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic

This passage leads me to two conclusions:

1. I would like to be Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle when I grow up.
2. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is able to love children in this way because she has her house to herself at night.

I love children. I think they are fascinating, hilarious, and unendingly lovable. The more they misbehave, it seems, the more I love them.

But I have learned this week that I can sustain this love for 40-70 hours a week, not for 168. I can be the most loving, most creative, most fun caregiver as long as I can retreat to my beloved fortress of solitude each night and recoup my energy. Turns out, unfortunately, that I cannot handle the all-day-every-day business of being a parent.

And so. I have gained an enormous respect for those introverts who do parent. You all are superheroes. And I have gained perspective on what I can and cannot handle as I strive to serve my Savior. I have come up against more selfishness in my heart than I ever dreaded to see. And I have gained a wealth of painful humility.

I love the orphan. I pray God will use me to serve orphans and the families who embrace them in their distress. But I have also come up against the ugly truth that I value my own pursuits and, to some degree, comfort, more highly than I value the plight of the particular fatherless ones who have crossed my path.

What will God do with this revelation in my life? I don't know. The future is murky at best. I pray that my heart will always seek His glory first, and my own comfort last, but that life of self-sacrifice must be somehow sustainable. And therein lies the tension. I do not know what the future holds. As my favorite book relates, "all is to come."

"'With infinite time before us,’ said Neville, ‘we ask what shall we do? Shall we loiter down Bond Street, looking here and there, and buying perhaps a fountain-pen because it is green, or asking how much is the ring with the blue stone? Or shall we sit indoors and watch the coals turn crimson? Shall we stretch our hands for books and read here a passage and there a passage? Shall we shout with laughter for no reason? Shall we push through flowering meadows and make daisy chains? Shall we find out when the next train starts for the Hebrides and engage a reserved compartment? All is to come.’" --Virginia Woolf, The Waves