Teaching Tuesday / Change and Growth

Most people struggle with change to some degree, and I guess in most aspects of change I do, too. But there's one area that I applaud change - that's in the area of GROWTH!

I took some re-enactment pictures to make my teaching points of today more memorable. I left out the children involved because both situations happened years ago, when both children were about 5 years old, respectively.

This situation involved our oldest biological daughter, Christy. Christy was sitting at the bar eating when she accidentally spilled her milk. She wasn't playing or being disobedient. Just being human and had an accident that involved tipping over her milk.

Her young, immature, foolish mama (aka yours truly) exploded in fury. Irately yelling at her for such behavior, I overreacted profusely and wounded my precious child.

Even though later, I was mortified with my sickeningly, hateful conduct, I knew that I had hurt Christy. Years later, when I was older and wiser, I very humbly repented to her and asked for her forgiveness. Even though she had no recollection of the incident, she quickly and freely forgave me.

Fast forward about 34 years, sweet Janiah, who was also about five, loved to paint my toenails. She was good at it, and she was extremely careful.

On one particular day, she accidentally set the bright red nail polish down on the beige carpet. It tipped over, and a large spot of red of nail polish now covered an area on the carpet.

Thank God for Change and Growth . . .

Praise the Lord, this situation was handled with kingdom love. I helped Janiah clean the mess up as best we could. I assured her it was fine, and that we would just get a rug to cover up and hide the spill. No yelling! No berating her! No maligning her character by heaping shame on her. It was just a simple accident that could have happened to anyone, and it was treated as such.

The other day sitting on the side of the bed, I asked Ruth if she knew what was under the rug side of the bed.

She looked at me kind of puzzled and replied, "No."

So, I pulled back the rug to show her the red nail polish, and proceeded to tell her the story of how a $12 rug was a reminder that God is Good! He can take even the worst rageaholic like me, and bring His healing, deliverance, and restoration.

So, so, thankful for His grace and mercy and His being so longsuffering with loving me into the conformity of Jesus. He's such an awesome teacher. Nothing (not even $500 new carpet) is worth damaging the soul of a child. One is temporal, and the other eternal! There is absolutely no comparing the value of one to the other.

Thank You, Jesus, for still working on me! Best $12 I ever spent!

Dear Parent, maybe you like me have blown it. Cheer up! Forgive yourself! Then humble yourself and ask for your child's forgiveness, dust your knees off and go again. This time with more of His wisdom and His love! Blessed Parenting!

#TeachingTuesday #ChangeAndGrowth