Sweet Tea Friend

I'm a southern girl.  Good ole' Mississippi, no less.  So sweet tea is my thing... Real sweet tea.  The kind you steep for half the day and add a cup of real sugar to and then let it sit and mix overnight.

No instant powder options and no unsweet tea that I have to add my own sweetner to.  In fact, many a restaurant has been labeled "failure" in my book for their inability to serve real sweet tea.

When I go to my mom's, she always has an extra pitcher made.  There's something about sipping sweet tea at my mom's in East Texas that tilts my world back right.

Suffice to say, sweet tea might just be my comfort food. 

This past week was hard.  I was sick and tired and the boys were sick and tired of me being sick and tired.  (Quick, how many times can a 6 year old ask if I'm still sick?  Answer: too many times to count).

Friday found me hiding on the couch fighting the urge to call my husband home from work to help and fighting the tears that hovered so close to the surface about to spill over.

And then my sweet 5 year old has a tantrum of epic proportions.  Screaming, destroying and disobeying.

I'm feebly telling him to go to his room.
He's firmly screaming at me "no" while continuing to do what I told him not to do.

Once I tell him he's reached 7 spankings and his mouth is being washed out with soap (why yes, yes we do discipline seriously around here), he now decides to obey.

At that moment, a message pops up on my phone.

From my sweet friend who had to find someone else to watch her girls that morning because I was sick.
My sweet friend who had offered to come over and watch the boys so I could rest.
My sweet friend who was checking in to see how everything was going.

So I told her.  Honestly.  Hopefully I didn't come across as desperate as I felt... But I'm sure I did!

She didn't skip a beat.  Even thought she had been at a difficult appointment that morning, she tells me to come over with the boys and she'll make me sweet tea.

Be still my heart.

What came to my mind as I went to discipline my passionate little fireball and what I told him was; this was evidence of God's sheer goodness.

In our wicked moments of rebellion and disobedience, He wraps us up in His loving arms of comfort.
He is a God of mercy and loves to give us good gifts even though we don't deserve them and have not even thought to ask for them.

So humbly I went to receive a blessing in the form of a dear friend and a glass filled with much more than comfort.