Well, a couple of weeks ago there was a major lack of harmony in our house between me and my girls, my girls and me, and my girls with each other. I'm sure that a fly in the room would have seen many ugly faces exchanged between the three of us. Negative tones were flying. Stomping feet. Pushing. Arguing. Disregard for each other's well being. Disagreements. Disrespect. Displeasure to the Nth degree. Where did this stem from? What. Happened. Here?
It came from another "dis". DISOBEDIENCE. I want to say that it was the girls' disobedience. It was. But it was also my own. Did you catch that? Yes. I am admitting it; it was my OWN disobedience.
It started out as any other day. I woke up with Natalie and fed her. Then our "normal" day ended; Kara woke up crying. When I went and asked her what was wrong, trying to hug and comfort her, she glared at me, pushed me away, and said, "No." Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. We had breakfast and that went pretty well. Then started the, "This is my Christmas present. I'm going to play with it. This is YOUR Christmas present and I'm going to play with it, too," stunt pulled by Kaylee. I tried to deal with things peaceably for a while... but by 9:00 I hit my limit. I was no longer going to try. I couldn't do it anymore. I had it. I was done. (Did you notice that I couldn't do it anymore?) Here enters the, "I've had it, sit in time-out" fits from mom. Oh. No. That didn't work. "Ok, time-out isn't working. Go sit in the bathroom and wait to have a talk from mom." Yeah. That's setting the tone real well, Mama. Good job. Now, I'm getting the job done. Aren't I?
The rest of the day was filled with blatant disobedience from my girls to me and Zach. "Please stay up at the table," was followed by a mischievous look while climbing down from the table. "Don't touch the light," was followed by a pitter-patter run towards the light to touch it (and turn it off seeing as it was a touch lamp). Wow. This doesn't even do the day justice. It was rough.
During a relatively good and easy bedtime (Thank Jesus!), I was able to reflect on the hard day with the girls. We talked about our bad attitudes and how we treated each other with ugly hearts. We didn't love each other like Jesus loves. This is the point where I was finally willing to start looking at MY ugliness in it. I still wasn't fully willing. Then, as I lay in bed, I thought back through the day again. Oops. There it was. Right in front of me. My ugly, ugly sin. Through all my raised eyebrows and "you don't want to mess with this mom" looks towards the girls, I saw it. Through my, "That didn't work, but this will certainly LEARN YOU GOOD" words of "wisdom" to my girls that I'm supposed to be training up in righteousness, I saw it. My own disobedience. They came in small fleeting moments that could have made the BIGGEST difference throughout the day.
Ephesians 6:4 kept coming into mind throughout the day. "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." My response was to ignore. My response was to deflect. It wasn't MY fault that the girls were disobeying. They are sinners on their own. (Which they are, but that aside...) I wanted to see through my sin. My tone, my action, my looks, my words of "Why can't you do better... JUST LEARN ALREADY!" were definitely provoking my girls. My discipline tactics, although not completely wrong, were not RIGHT either. I KNEW this and I kept doing things my way anyway. I could figure this out. I was disobeying.
"Love one another, for love comes from God (1 John 4:7a)" was not what I taught my girls that day. "We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19)" wasn't either. This is another point of me blatantly disobeying God again. Kaylee has little handouts from Sunday school with memory verses. She brought both of these verses up to me at two separate times during the day--both following ugly moments of discord in our home--and asked me to read them. I read them. I chose not to pay attention to them.
I remembered the past Sunday's sermon given by Mark Lauterbach. We often get stuck in this "learn it, do it" cycle. We just want our kids to learn how to be better and then actually be better. We think we should be able to learn it and do it better. The thing is, we forget Who actually works. WE can't do it on our own. By the Grace of God extended to us, we can do it THROUGH CHRIST. We fail in our own strength. We think that if we can just keep all these rules, we'll be better. The thing is, this is actually bondage because WE can't keep all the rules. We are only truly free when we live in Christ. Not rules. I remembered Pastor's words of truth, but didn't act on them. Disobedience.
God allowed me to remember these specific moments from throughout the day to see my sin of disobedience. It's ugly. It's not fun. It's a necessary part of sanctification. The recognition and reflection of my sin will only make my faith in Him stronger. Hopefully, it will remind me to listen to His reminders and obey the next time my house falls into discord. Because of Christ in me, the Fruit of the Spirit can be evidenced. Because of Christ, the desires of the flesh can be put to death. I realize that I will fail and discord will once again be in my house. I cannot stop my girls from sinning. I will continue to sin. The next time my house falls to discord, the first place I must go is to the foot of the cross, for on my own I can do no good. I must pray that Christ will work in me and through me. I must pray that Christ will dwell in the hearts of my girls, for they are sinners, too, unable to do good out of their own accord.
Fall at His feet. Drink up His grace. Put on the Fruit of His Spirit. Pray for Him to work in our hearts.
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