Mom, you should be a teacher

I desperately need a quick 15-minute cat nap so I'm hoping to sneak that in before waking up the babies and picking up the older girls from school. But I needed to write. Like I really NEEDED to write.

This morning while teaching the girls a couple of life lessons from the scriptures and drawing some quick sketches to help them understand said lessons, Mya looked up at me with a wide smile and exclaimed, "Mom, you should be a teacher. I get what you are saying."

She gets what I am saying!! Hooray! I may fail a million times a day, but my daughter gets me (most of the time). This was a huge moment for me. Just last week after dropping the girls off at school after a disastrous morning routine, I banged my head on the steering wheel, moaning that the girls would never understand me. Elle tapped my shoulder and whispered, "Mom, it's just Mya. She doesn't understand anyone." We laughed hard because the wisdom of my 4 year old always amazes me. But she was wrong; Mya does understand me--she just chooses not to listen all the time.

Isn't this the same with all of us from time to time. We have the ability to understand another person but lack the sensibility to listen to them--like really listen to them. I'm seeing it all over social media with regards to the women's march, which in my opinion was one of the most beautiful demonstrations of love I have ever seen in my lifetime. So many people think they understand why people marched or didn't march, but they don't actual listen to their reasons.

We would do well to talk less and listen more. I continue to remind myself of this piece of sound advice given to me so long ago. And for today, I am going to gloat a little knowing that one of my children gets me. It means the world to me. I honestly try to teach to their understanding because I feel God has always done so with me. He speaks to me in my language and to my heart. I do the same for my babies. And apparently, it's working.