Loving on Purpose [Guest Blog Post By Kimberly Mayhew O'Brien]

We were travelling back from Florida in our Ford Excursion with 4 children (3-9yrs). My husband was unable to sleep while I drove (I was nervous driving the large and new to us SUV). I was unable to sleep when he drove (he hadn’t slept and I was concerned that he might fall asleep at the wheel). We pulled into a rest stop at around 2 a.m. and as soon as we turned off the SUV, our 3 year old woke up and was Mr. Chatterbox. He whispered as he spoke, but he still managed to wake up the other kids.

After almost a half hour of quiet chatter, I decided to get back in the driver’s seat and try again. We drove another couple of hours. Knowing that if we didn’t rest before daybreak, we wouldn’t be able to get any sleep at all, we decided to pull in to a hotel parking lot and got a 45 minute nap.

After 30 long hours of driving, we were almost home. I thought about our long journey to get to this point; particularly the 2+ hour detour. We had stopped for dinner and my husband took out the Blackberry Playbook so that I could play some games. We were packed full and he had to push things back in and close the door before anything fell out. Between stuff and kids and wanting to get home, he had forgotten that he placed the Playbook on the bumper. About an hour later, he remembered. We turned around going away from home again in hopes that we might find it. We looked at the restaurant where we had stopped and it wasn’t there. As we travelled back to the highway towards home, we saw something black on the on ramp. There it was, lying on the road. With all of the traffic, it hadn’t been run over and was in perfect working condition.

This was a teachable circumstance for our family. Sometimes we get frustrated with our kids because they forget to brush their teeth or put away their dishes…again. But our mistakes are far bigger than theirs and we don’t have our Father (God), yelling at us about it. He lovingly guides us to do the right thing, to get back on track. It would have been so easy for me to get angry with Jeff and remind him that we didn’t have time for this kind of detour. It was disappointing for sure and my natural inclination was to say something in frustration. But I felt the spirit of God nudging me to show him love in those moments. Knowing that we may not find the Playbook and that we had two more hours of driving to get back to where we were, I showed him love. Furthermore, the kids were able to see us deal with the situation in a loving and positive way and they saw God answer prayer… again (because he does care about the little stuff), and their faith increased.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.