Sometimes I get a bit too ambitious, I think (and I’m sure my husband thinks that’s the understatement of the year). This was one of those days when I decided that I desperately needed some shelves for organizing my workspace, and so at 35 weeks pregnant (and looking like I’m ready to explode) I hauled my three kids to the hardware store for some lumber so I could build those shelves. I know. When I write it out it doesn’t sound very logical to me either.

I usually try to avoid taking all the kids shopping with me. I’ve learned how to handle it, and they are generally pretty good, it’s just not a battle I really love to pick if I can help it. In any case, like I said, I was feeling ambitious and didn’t want to wait until Jared got home from work, so I loaded everyone up for the hardware store, chose out some wood planks, screws, and brackets, and only had one major child meltdown. I felt quite accomplished!

Then it was out to the van to load the kids and the boards when a teenager, about 14, with the most heartbreaking southern drawl approached.

Ma’am, can I help you with those?

Since I seem to think I’m superwoman I did wonder for a half-second what I needed help with. Ha. Then remembering my pregnant belly looks like it will explode at any moment, that I still had kids to buckle, and that the boards were probably heavier than I should be lifting right now, I graciously accepted.

It took him a third of the time it would have taken me to maneuver the wood into the back of the van, and probably spared me a few Braxton Hicks. When the job was done, the young man went back to the vehicle next to me, put his iPod earplugs back in, and continued to wait for his mom or dad inside the store. No else was around, no parent told him to help, no girls were nearby to impress, no payment was expected. Just good ol’ fashioned southern hospitality. As I left the parking lot I was overcome with emotional gratitude and wanted to hug his mom.

{My shelf building helper}

Every day as I wade through power struggles, whining, and tantrums, I know in the back of my mind that the principles I’m teaching my kids are right. Some principles are easy to teach. Like, as much as my kids hate doing their chores or eating broccoli at dinner, I know clean or healthy habits will help them later in their life and so we give them responsibilities, and require bites of everything at every meal.

But then there are principles like being honest, kind, and helpful that have grayer lines for me. I can explain these principles, I can be a consistent example exercising them myself, but it seems only time and prayer and trust will truly tell if I’ve done my part.

Some teenage boy’s mom did do her part as an intentional parent. Who knows if she’ll ever know the act of service or the effect her son had on me. But the example of that boy gives me hope that the hard parenting work we’re putting in now does pay off and I pray my own goofy, belching, nosepicking, stinky-sock, six-year-old son (and daughters!) will grow up to be as mature.