Prayers

I was pulling out the 3T boys clothes for Beckett this morning. He is just too pudgy for the 2 T shirts, and they have never fit over his head. The 2t pants have always been too tight around the belly, unfortunately, he is not really tall enough for the 3T. I finally bit the bullet and pulled out the 3T tub. I figured, he is the last of my children to wear them and he has ripped through more pants than Carter ever did, so I might as well let him walk off the bottoms anyway (I'll roll them up the best I can).

As I get the tub, Carter sees a shirt that he desperately wants to wear. "That is my favorite shirt mom!! I want it back." I explained that he wore this when he was 3 and it probably didn't fit him any more. He begged and pleaded. He cried and cried. I sat down with him and tried to explain that he was getting bigger, and he will outgrow things. This was just part of life. He would not stop crying. He remembered all the good times he had while wearing this shirt (he is very sentimental, like me)

I told Carter I would pray to Heavenly Father and ask him to shrink my boy back down so he could fit in the shirt. He responded with:

"No, that won't work. He won't do that."

Well why not?

"Because it isn't something we NEED."

I told him that we ask him for things that we want all the time. Isn't He supposed to give us everything we pray for?

"No. Not if we don't need it. He gets to choose, not us."

But what it we really want it and we pray really hard?

"No."

But doesn't He love us?

"Yeah."

So we talked about the three answers we get from our prayers: Yes, No, and Not Right Now.

To get the Not Right Now, we have to be really in tune. It can sometimes be hard to distinguish from  Yes and No.

By then, he was no longer crying. He looked up at me, very calmly, and asked if he could try on the shirt to see how it still fit. I told him that was great problem solving. He tried on the shirt, and wouldn't you know it - it still fit!! Now I remember it being extremely large when we got it.