I expected something from my family.
I had all these visions of how wonderful and peaceful things
would be with me home all day. The kids
would be happy. They would be getting
along. The animals wouldn’t shed. The dishes and clothes would wash themselves. My husband would come home smiling, thrilled
to see me there.
The biggest expectation I had was that they would be here, this place I am mentally, with
me.
“‘For I know the plans
I have for you…’” The words offer me
reassurance. Not only that He knows what
is in store for me, but for my family too.
I am in a place of peace right now, trusting the Lord with so much. I feel no stress, no pressure.
Alright. I take that
back. I feel stress and pressure.
It stresses me that my family hasn’t found this place where
I am. I’m not sure how I thought they
would get to this place. Osmosis,
maybe. A time machine? Then I realized someone needs to lead them, show them
this place, let them see how wonderful it is.
That someone is me.
So now I have the pressure to lead my family to this place of peace. If I don’t lead them, someone else will, and chances are good they will lead them to the
wrong place. They are my family; my responsibility.
Last week, after dinner, we started having bible study as a
family. Earlier in the day, I jot down
some verses and we go through them, line by line. We look up words the kids don’t know and make
The Word make sense to them, applying it to their lives. It amazed me when, on the first night, my
10-year-old daughter asked if she could take notes. Then my 14-year-old daughter asked me to back
up and go over everything again so she could write it all down. They
were hungry, eating up the fact that The Bible had stuff in it that applied
to them!
The second night, the girls came to the dining room, Bibles
in hand, ready for the night’s lesson.
My heart swelled! They wanted more!
Unfortunately, my 7-year-old son had a baseball game right
then. But when we got home, everyone
gathered their bibles and notebooks and sat around the dining room table, pens
and highlighters in hand. We studied
until past 9p.m. that night and the next, and there was nowhere else anyone would
have rather been.
The look in the eyes of my children as they soak in The Word
is amazing. Full of wonder and amazement
and innocence. I told them how I wished
someone would have sat with me like this when I was their age and showed me
that there were rules set forth by the Lord that would apply to everyday life,
even today. We talked about how living
according to God’s will can give you a life of peace versus a life of stress. We ran through several scenarios that they would
encounter in everyday life and determined whether it would bring them stress or
peace. They definitely wanted the peace
more than the stress.
No, this wasn’t a miracle cure for my kids. They still talk back, lie, are mean to each
other, yell, and whatever else. They aren’t
walking around with halo’s above their heads saying yes, ma’am and yes,
sir. But they’re learning. They’re taking it all in like candy they can’t
get enough of. And this is one candy I don’t
mind them having.
Verses we studied in the past week:
Proverbs 6:16-19, 14:29, 15:18, 13:18, 15:32, 4:24, 14:27,
16:6
Philippians 2:14
1Thessalonians 5:15-18
Psalm 101:6-7
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