Praying rather than losing heart

Somewhere in the Bible is a verse that one version translates as, "Men ought to pray and not to lose heart."

I've been reminded of this a number of times in the last couple of days.

This morning in getting our kids ready for school, we realized that we had lost track of their backpacks since sometime on Tuesday afternoon. The obvious place to look first was the pool where they go on Tuesday afternoon after school. Normally I go and help keep track of the packs, but I didn't go this past week. My wife called the pool, then went there herself to look in the locker where she had been. She didn't find them. She also contacted Pappy Alain and Grandma Antoinette and asked them to pray about the situation, which was a wise move on her part.

I also looked on the kids storage place at school, but didn't see them there either.

So I was thinking that we would need to buy new backpacks, as well as explain to our 3 year old that her 2 friends ("Strawberry Shortcake" and "Squishy Bear") were missing. I was not feeling overly benevolent toward my wife about the backpack situation.

When she went to get the kids at lunchtime, she found the backpacks sitting on top of the place at school where kids put their scooters. Apparently, they left the backpacks sitting in the lobby area after school and someone placed them on the scooter shelf. So the missing backpack situation was resolved.

When I got to la Fonderie meeting, Jim had brought back the sipper cup that had been missing to us since the Thanksgiving celebration at his place on Sunday. Situation number two was resolved as well.

In the mail this week, we've also received some papers that we've needed to get to get some banking and insurance situations corrected. While the paperwork never seems to end, I am seeing some headway being made.

One situation that is not resolved and does need prayer is some behavioral problems of our son at school. From his teacher's report to my wife after school today, he is constantly repeating what she says, which is maddening to her and interruptive to the class. He claimed to have a stomach ache this morning, so we kept him home. However, he seemed fine at home, so we sent him back to school in the afternoon. He also tends to imitate the silliness of some of his classmates, or does something silly to get their attention.

We definitely need God's wisdom in knowing what we should do as parents to encourage positive and constructive behavior and discourage negative and destructive behavior.