a desperate prayer for potty-training [+ a giveaway]

Two weeks ago today, I prayed for something that I feel like lots of people probably haven’t. (I certainly hadn’t only a few months ago.) I prayed a desperate prayer for potty training.

After over a month of jumping in, full force to the demands of teaching another human about their own bodily functions, things were taking a significant turn for the worst. Despite seeming so ready, despite really seeming to “get it” for a period, we ended that day two weeks ago, with four wet-sheet incidents and poop on the floor.

In the middle of that discouraging day, I got an email from my mom. She has been one of my best cheerleaders in this season, and offered me permission to take a break and the freedom to return to diapers, if it felt helpful.

As much as I appreciated the intention, I felt annoyed, because I didn’t want that to be the answer. I wanted there to be something else to try. I wanted a different solution that didn’t feel like giving up. But I was willing to admit that I didn’t know what my daughter needed. It felt like we had tried everything and yet here we were with more laundry and clean-ups than I could handle.

So, I prayed.

I asked Jesus, as I’d asked him all throughout this process, for wisdom. I asked him to let me know if this permission wasn’t just from my mom, but from him too. If it was, I told him that I was willing to back up. I wanted to be done with diapers, but not at the expense of my family. I wanted this to happen, but not just so I could prove myself or because it was what I wanted it. I told Jesus that I only wanted L to be potty-trained now if it was truly best. And if not, I was willing to step back.

I didn’t want it to be the way my “brave” and “humble” words for the year manifested themselves, but I told Jesus I would if this was from him.

That night, after yet another accident, my sweet husband came down and suggested we take a break from potty training. Knowing he had no knowledge about my mom’s email or my desperate prayer, I felt Jesus whisper to my heart that this was from him.

I immediately burst into tears.

This wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

This wasn’t what I wanted.

It didn’t feel brave or humble.

It felt like failure.

That night, I changed her sheets for the fourth time and put a diaper on my daughter, beginning our break from potty training. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I couldn’t deny the confirmation in my spirit, that this was from Jesus.

I love these words from Max Davis, out of his new book, When Jesus was a Green-Eyed Brunette:

“With Jesus living inside us, our calling in life is not about religious rules and activities. Rather, it is to step where He steps, stop where He stops, and go where He goes. As believers, we’re all on a journey with Him. He is with us every place we go. When we walk in that awareness, it makes the supermarket as sacred as the chapel and checking the mail a holy adventure.” (181)

This was truly what I experienced that day two weeks ago. Jesus was with me in the midst of my struggle, in the midst of my not-knowing, in the midst of my discouragement. I love that potty-training got to be sacred because Jesus was part of it. I love that I’m not on my own, even for the daily mundane struggles I have.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. Psalm 68: 19-20

And friends, I have been thanking Jesus every day since that day two weeks ago for his grace to me in telling me to take a break from potty training. I have been praising him for the grace of diapers and his tremendous care for me in these “small” things.

The dread that I didn’t even know was there has been lifted.

The pressure that I didn’t even know had landed on my shoulders is gone.

I feel free to enjoy my daughter fully again, and what grace that is at Christmastime especially.

For a planner, it still feels hard not to have a plan for when diapers will go away or a timeline for when things will look different. But today, I’m saying thank you. I’m saying thank you to Jesus for being “God-with-us.”

I’m thanking him for making the mundane into something sacred, the daily stuff into something holy. This is our God. 

In When Jesus Was a Green-Eyed Brunette, Max Davis shares his own stories and those of others to paint picture after picture of who Jesus is. He is honest and vulnerable not only about his positive experiences, but his own pain and discomfort, which makes him an easy person to listen to. His pastor’s heart shines through, as he shares from a place of his own experience of who Jesus is, deeply desiring that for others. Instead of church rhetoric or Christian language, this book felt easy to hear grace through the stories Max told. I loved his heart to help others see Jesus as someone who cares and works today and is very much part of our daily life, if we have the willingness to invite him there. B for me. 

I have the pleasure of giving away a copy of Jesus Was a Green-Eyed Brunette to one of my readers. Comment below and you’ll be entered! I’ll draw a name next week.

“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the
Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway.  If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win.  Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”