Gut Check...

The topic that's been tossing around in my brain lately (by lately I mean the last couple months) the topic I'm trying to decide how to broach with out sounding like too much of a lunatic is finally coming to fruition. Then of course I realized this post couldn't possibly make me sound any less sane so just go with my gut. AAAHHHH, there it is, my gut. The subject du jour. Mother's intuition, that sixth sense, knowing the peas are in the napkin before you unfold it. Knowing they don't really have to go to the bathroom REALLY, REALLY, BAD RIGHT NOW, during dinner only to dispose of the uneaten miscellaneous vegetable. Knowing that silence is not by any stretch of the imagination "golden". Keeping Ethan home from school just because, to have him throwing up by noon. How many things have we done with out knowing what the consequences would have been other wise? Turning down a different road on our walk or going to the park across town because I felt like we should. So who cares? We all have it, that voice of ours that keeps us in check. Interesting, do I really think I'm that smart? Do I really think that I can predict/anticipate random acts in the future. I don't know what's for dinner tomorrow! Yet, for years I've been giving myself a whole lot of pats on the back while at the same time wondering where God has been all those years. Why is He just starting to speak up now? Why did he let me wing it out there all alone for so long? The pull that I had to have a third child, the surprise of getting one and the peace of not remotely wanting another. I credit God with getting around the birth control, why don't I credit him for the desire for more or the feeling that our family is now whole? I guess finally listening to Him has made me realize He has been talking to me all along. Every day my gut tells me something to do or not. To be suspect about and to be at complete ease with. Every day I struggle saying "I knew it! I just knew it wasn't right/wrong/there/going to happen/going to show up/going to work/not going to work...etc" Feeling the pride of my vast knowledge of all things parental filling me. Did I mention I don't know what's for dinner tomorrow? Now I struggle to stop. Breathe. And simply say, Thank You. Thank you for the insight, thank you for the warning, thank you for the need and thank you for the peace. He's there talking all the time, unfortunately so am I (and the kids for that matter!) taking the time to listen and actually hear, to feel that it's right because He says so not because I did. How good it feels to take yet another thing off my plate. It leaves me room for tomorrow's lasagna.