Socks and Dollar bins

Ella hates to wear socks and them not be pulled up all the way. She hates it something terribly. Like so much that it will ruin the start to a perfectly good day. The majority of the time my 4 year old is very reasonable and easy going but get a wrinkle in her sock and it is all over. 

Her reactions vary - sometimes she may start to cry, sometimes she may lay down on the floor and throw an all out fit, or sometimes she will take her socks off and refuse to wear anything I suggest. No matter what the reaction is I assure you there is whining involved. I have learned something very valuable through all this - it's all about having the right socks. Apparently, no one wants to wear socks with all the little strings on the inside of them. In the winter high socks are good because she can pull them up as high as she wants. And in the summer ankle sock are good because, once again, she can pull them up as high as she wants. 

Starting a morning off wrong when you have two small children can set everything off balance so I have learned to keep the peace by avoiding the wrong things.

 I think I am learning this in life as well. If there is something that causes a rise out of us the way that wrinkly socks do my 4 year old than we need to make the adjustments to not allow that to happen. You see, it's like this - Ella wants to buy the Hello Kitty socks in the dollar bins at Target. They are cute and colorful and fun and cheap. But I know that though it may be fun for a bit ultimately it is going to cause problems in the future. We have to learn the same things with our lives. Just because we may like doing certain things or being certain places  doesn't necessarily mean that they will leave us feeling that same way when we leave.  Just because a song on the radio is good or a certain t.v. show is funny doesn't mean that we aren't going to be left with a wrinkle in the end.  When making a choice about life one should put as much thought into it as you do when you go to buy socks. You know what you want to wear and you know what you like and at the end of the day you are going to buy the socks that make you happy when you put them on each morning. When you make decisions on what to do with your life think about the outcome. At the end of the day are you going to be better off because you have gone through with a decision or because you have surrounded yourself with the company you have chosen or are you going to be left feeling uneasy -sort of like the feeling you get when you have wrinkles in the bottom of your socks. 

Satan lives to get a foothold on our life and at any given moment he will seize the opportunity to take a feeling, a situation, an activity and turn it into something way more than it was ever meant to be. We give him too much of a foothold when we do not protect the places we go, the things we watch and listen to, and the situations we allow ourselves to be put in. He is way more crafty than we acknowledge and something that was meant to be fun and easy can leave us feeling worn and tired. 

Proverbs 13:20-23, "He who walks with the wise grows wise,  but a companion of fools suffers harm. Misfortune pursues the sinner, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous."