A Tent of Thankfulness

Psalm 63: 6 " I will remember you while I'm lying in bed; I think about you through the night."

About a year ago, Greg (being the most wonderful Daddy in the world) set up our youngest daughter’s tent in the backyard.  Now he did this with every intent to have a Daddy daughter sleepover.  However, between work and wet weather, the poor tent just sat empty night after night.

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Due to his work schedule, I realized the opportunity was quickly being reduced.  Although, Hope is very understanding, and really had enough awareness to know it looked like a “camping trip” wasn’t going to happen this particular set up, I felt the need to be the “available and fun” mom and offer to sleep in the tent with her.

Hope was ecstatic with my offer.  She began to “pack” for our trip.  Everything from sleeping bags, flashlights, food and water bottles, to books and games to play.  Somehow, the more she packed the more I asked myself, what was I thinking?

I mean, I really didn’t want to do this thing.  Besides, I am not a "night person" and fall asleep anytime I sit down after 8:30pm. I was also a little scared.  I mean we have a tall privacy fence, but one of the gates was very near where the tent was set up.

All that said, we finally made our way to the tent for the night.  We have one blow up mattress that Hope insisted I use.  She was content with a couple of quilts and her sleeping bag on top.  I thought we would be up all night playing games, eating, and talking.

I spent the first half an hour trying to rig up a way to hang a flashlight from the center of the tent.  After I finally attached a small rope to go through one of the rods holding up the tent, the flashlight was in place.  What I hadn’t considered was due to the fact it was hanging, it never stop swinging.    The light in our tent became a disco ball.

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My idea of having a good time will usually involve words and sweets.  So I broke out our snacks and began reading a great children’s classic out loud.  I hardly had begun to “have a good time” when I realized my partner was fast asleep!

While my air mattress became flatter and flatter, and the neighbor’s house alarm went off (they must have been out of town, because it went on for over an hour) and the longest train of the night rumbled through, I laid there thinking, “Now why am I doing this?”

So I laid in the tent, unable to sleep, listening to my child sleeping through all the noise.  I began to pray, actually praise the Lord for this moment.  The quiet of her, surrounded by the noise of my world.  In those moments, I was flooded with a heart of praise of precious memories of being Hope’s mom.

Praise rolled from my heart.  We had prayed for another child.  God had blessed us with her.  I had prayed specifically for a girl, and God had chosen Hope.  I thanked the Lord for helping me to watch her mature, and allowing me to see her understand Christ.

It was a pleasure laying wide awake in the tent, rubbing her arm and telling God how blessed I felt to be her mom. As I lay on the flattened mattress, with a flashlight dressed as a disco light, even with the possibility that I was filling Hope’s memory box of an outing with her mom was overshadowed by an opportunity to thank the Lord for the gift of mothering.

Moms, lets not miss a single opportunity to tell the Lord thanks for our calling!  We can get so wrapped up in our own lives, ministries, even attempting to do motherhood so right, we don’t stop to say thank you to our Heavenly Father.  Thank Him for the honor of being moms.  Of loving the moment we are in.  Let’s stop and praise Him for calling us to be moms. 




Proverbs 23: 25 "...may she who gave you birth rejoice!"