Appetizer:

I really think that someone who understands life as a mother of small children should invent a “stink detector.”  Lately, my days have been riddled with phantom odors that I can neither find nor identify.  It’s making me crazy.  If there were some kind of contraption with a raunch radar that could beep when you’re closer and closer and give you some kind of bacterial analysis and tell you what’s causing the smell, THAT is what I would call making the world a better place.

(Now wasn’t that appetizing?)

Main course:

Matt and I went out on a date last weekend and played this free “game” at Borders.  We had 12 minutes to go find a few books that the other person would just love, then we met up, showed each other our books, sat on a couch and perused them.  One of the books Matt picked for me was “Mother Teresa, in her own words.”  Anyway, I read almost the entire book while Matt flipped through tomes about Chinese characters, the founding fathers, and Native American historical sites.  She had so many great things to say, that Mother Teresa, but one that really jumped out at me was this (paraphrased, because I didn’t actually buy the book):

“God doesn’t expect us to be successful.  He expects us to be faithful.”

I’ve been thinking about that for days, and how true I think it really is.  God can be successful with or without our help; he’s omnipotent for heaven’s sake (no pun intended)!  He only needs our faith, our devotion, our heart.  Then He can work out our salvation.  It made me reflect on how much I’m always trying to “accomplish,” when really I should just be increasing and acting upon my faith in Him.  It was a quite liberating moment of enlightenment that ties in nicely to all the thoughts I’ve had recently (and we’ve discussed here in the comments and beyond).

And there was one other thing, too.  Mother Teresa worked with lepers and poor people tirelessly.  One person commented to her that they wouldn’t touch a leper “for a million dollars,” to which she replied (paraphrased again), “I wouldn’t do it for a million dollars either.  I wouldn’t do if for two million dollars.  But I would do it for the love of God.”  How cool is that?  It made me think of how so many women today opt out of motherhood because they wouldn’t make all that hard sacrifice even if someone paid them to do it.  I’m no Mother Teresa, but I have to agree that I do the hard things I do because of the love of God… the love I feel for Him, and the love I feel from Him when I do what he asks of me.

Dessert:

Behold, a little Clark video we made to share with grandparents.  Please do not tell me what a stellar mother I am, or how I’m doing a great job and all that other nice stuff you might be compelled to say (and that grandmothers are obligated to say), but you really should see this because it is SO sweet.  Also, don’t be distracted by the sound of a dropping toilet lid in the background.

This is seriously just a simple case of great kid.  (His idea, his testimony, his conviction.)