repentance

We see our kids sin.  We so want them to get it.  They don't seem to get the gravity or the repercussions of not getting it today can worsen tomorrow.   I often also bear witness that they also don't often seem to see how they impact others with their choices.

The reality is they just may not get it.  In the Father's eyes we don't get our sin and he had to die for a people who didn't get it.  How much more his pain.  How much more does He see.

The other day I felt weary re-directing and my "no" not being enough.  I finally said to Bobo who was very persistent in wanting something I didn't want him to have.  I said, "Bobo would you enjoy making that....knowing I don't want you to?  In other words instead of just saying no and arguing that between one another.  How will it feel to him if he knows I really don't want him to do it.  I feel like sometimes I want to appeal to my kids as to the adults they will one day become.  They won't just have a parent saying, no.  They will have to be aware of the impact of their choices on those around them.

On another day, I finally (after months) used the change Bobo had given me as a birthday gift for a coffee.  When we went in, he asked for a treat.  I said if he and Dev split and I wasn't feeling like paying the price of coffee shop treats for two. He didn't love that answer and continued to ask.  I talked with him as we left and just let him know the pressure I received from him stole my joy of finally cashing in on a gift he had given me.

I really want to prepare my kiddos for life ahead and their impact.  How do their actions affect those around them.

It is hard for me to understand the distain which they often treat each other with.  My love for each of them in so great and when they are unkind to one another it literally grieves my heart.  I was thinking the other day about how maybe my desire for them to get along and the picture I have of one big happy family is maybe too important to me?  It can feel like I am failing at this one job right now when they continually shoot arrows at each other.  It goes against all I hope for in a family and I don't know where it comes from and it is not the culture I feel I have worked for in our home.  However, maybe I put too much pressure on me, them, and maybe there is also something within me that is not creating it but ways I couldn't approach it differently.  "They say", in the homeschooling world that I am the atmosphere.  This is why in their continually bickering and unkindness, I need to see and determine my response.  Ugh, sometimes I just feel in a small bubble and I already have a playground of a mind!  I still need to think this through a bit.

I can feel so withholding when I see their sin and it actually repels me.  In this, I am asked to have the Fathers heart towards us which is to keep coming back to them again and again.

The other day I knew my response to Drew and the kids was too big and unwarranted.  I felt frustrated about a lot of things and they were easy targets as I wanted their help to clean up.  I literally had to force myself to apologize.  Swallow my pride and no matter if there was some truth to my frustrated words or some "rightness", I knew there was an undercurrent that didn't have anything to do with them.  I apologized and felt clean and that was that, we just went on our way.  A good lesson for this mama.