He Has An Angel Watching Over Him

 For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you,lest you strike your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the asp and the viper, trample the lion and the dragon. [Psalm 91:11-13 ]

Parenting has been so tough lately. Instead of his teacher and friend, I've had to be my Boy Wonder's warrior and protector. Against bus drivers and bullies. And it's not a role I really feel like I'm good at. I hate confrontation. I don't like "picking fights" and being that parent who emails and calls constantly until somebody listens.

And lately I've been wondering more and more if my problems are too small for God. He's got big things like government shutdowns and chemical weapons and hurricane season to deal with. Is he really still able to watch over my tiny people or has it been left to me?

That's a scary thought, but I'm wild and reckless when I'm tired and sometimes thoughts like these get through.

Every morning, in an effort to get Boy Wonder on some sort of schedule we have him take the dog out to go to the bathroom. Every. Single. Morning. It's dark. It's early. You get the picture.

Yesterday morning, I was waking the boys up, throwing socks and underwear at them, threatening to dump water bottles on them and basically making their wake up experience pretty miserable because they showed no signs of moving.

Normally, I push Boy Wonder out the door with a dog and a leash. But yesterday morning, I thought that I needed to take the dog out. I have no clue why. It was just a voice in my head telling me that I should.

Give the kid a break, the voice said. Do it yourself.

So I did.

We walked down the sidewalk to the dog run and while the pup was sniffing and circling, circling and sniffing, I heard them.

A mastiff and a golden retriever were about 50 feet away, off the leash. The owner was smoking a cigarette, uninterested in the fact that his dogs had zeroed in on us.

The mastiff charged at us and as valiant as my 15 pound dog is, he was no match so I scooped him up. The mastiff was barking and encroaching, trying to get a piece of my dog and I'm kicking at the stupid thing with a flip-flopped foot and the thought occurred to me:

What if this had been Boy Wonder?

He wouldn't have been able to pick the dog up. He wouldn't have been able to make himself big enough to make a mastiff stand down. He would have been scared and the stupid dog would have known it and something tells me it would have been awful.

It could have been ugly and a disaster and it was that moment right there that I knew I wasn't outside with this idiot Cujo dog by mistake.

Boy Wonder's guardian angels had done their job and marvelously and I walked away a little less burdened with the recent events and with a little more trust in the Almighty. He's got the time and the ability and the love to watch over my son. He does.

And for a little while this morning, it was enough. It was more than enough.

...happy happy happy...