Boys are Trouble

Let's look at this picture. There are many noticeable things about it. One, some of us are wearing crowns. I must admit, they do favor us pretty well. But let's count the girls. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. This will play into my tale presently.

This was the night when Jess called for volunteers for take care of the kids during Hank's sermon. Hank is one of us from the Ring, and was preaching in Spanish that night. I wanted to hear him just as much as anyone else, but no one was raising their hand to volunteer to take care of the kids, because that meant missing the sermon. So I said, why not, and threw my hat in to take care of the wee ones. Not knowing that mere minutes later, I'd be asking God to please if He deigns that I become a mother, that all I have are girls.

There were four boys. Ranging from around 5 to 9. They don't speak a lot of English, but they definitely speak a lot of Spanish. And they don't listen to anything I or any of the other girls say. It doesn't really matter what language we were speaking, Spanish or English, they were not going to do anything we told them to do.

A little over halfway into the service, one of them shoots out the door. Well, I'm telling one of them to get off the table while trying to keep them from hitting each other. I can't tell if they mean it or are just playing. Charlie, one of the guys from Peniel, comes to get a drink of water, which is right outside the room where we were keeping the boys. He understands and speaks English so I ask him if he's good at wranglin' boys because it's about as hard as herding cats. He says something to them in Spanish and they immediately stop whatever trouble they are making and sit down. It wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. The tone said it all. I said a little prayer of thankfulness and wished he could stay the rest of the service, but he's part of the worship band, so he had to go back.

There were seven of us and we couldn't handle four little boys. Yeah, seven. God, if You're thinking I'm up for motherhood, may they only be girls. Boys are trouble.