Lessons from Lilly

I often describe my daughter Lilly as a sixty-nine year old stuck in a five year old's body. Some would say she's an old soul. There are a few things I've been working on her with; looking people in the eye when she speaks to them, saying "yes Ma'am" instead of yes", and listening (to me) the first time. The other night at bedtime (when all the best discussions seem to be had)...we had this conversation:

Me: "Lilly, today wasn't super in the listening department...do you think you could work on that some more tomorrow?"
Lilly: (Beginning to Sob) "Every day I always do something wrong! I try every day to get everything right but there's always something that I don't do right. I just want to have one day where I don't mess up!"

She's her mother's daughter.

At this point, I made sure to tell her all the things she did do that day that were so great. She had her first violin practice and was super brave. She read me an entire new book and didn't miss a word! If I were to guess her love language it would be words of affirmation all the way...so I made sure to tell her these things first...and her tears began to subside.

But then what to say next?

My first thought was to tell her that every day we improve. Practice makes perfect right? You'll get better at listening-just like you got better at reading!

But then I realized that's not the whole truth. Instead I told her that she's right. She will never have a day where she gets it all right, where she perfects "life" and no longer needs to improve. I told her that I mess up every day too and that if we didn't mess up we wouldn't need a Savior. Our failures remind us of who we really are. But thank goodness for that Savior or we would all fall asleep sobbing every day because we just can't get it all right.