It strikes again.

The stinkin' girly-ness.

Last week, at Cubbies on Tuesday night, I was reading the little sweet peas a story. We do that every week, its nothing unusual. I've got story time for all of December. Usually they squirm and stir and interject with random thoughts they have.

But last week, as I was reading the story, I was absolutely overwhelmed. It was all I could do not to break down in tears in front of all 15 of those sweet little faces. This has never happened before. I really, really struggled to pull myself together. The story was one I've read them before, about a little boy who finds a stray puppy, and the puppy ends up saving the family's life in a fire. I think I just got too in-to-it... too much emotion and inflection into the reading. Its funny, the kids didn't fidget at all, and they all looked slightly starry eyed when I was done. One imploringly asked if we could read it again tomorrow.
We had a lot going on the last two weeks - I chalk it up to that.

But this week. Pff. There's no excuse. Tonight, I was reading them a story about a little girl who selflessly gave her favorite doll to an orphan. About halfway through, I had to start choking back the tears. "What on earth is wrong with me?" I wondered. As I was telling Kristy about this later, I realized what happened tonight. I was reading a story about a missionary family that was ministering in an orphanage. I was to be in Moldova loving little sweet peas in an orphanage this week. I thought I was over it, but apparently I'm not. Its okay and God knows best, I can love little sweet peas here just as thoroughly. An interesting tidbit about His timing... a few days ago we were to have a 7 hour layover in Rome (enough time to traipse about), and that very day the news headlines were fraught with news of riots and unrest in Rome. God is good and the ultimate protector.