Heart Monitor

I wrote the following for our homeschooling support group newsletter back in 2003, when First Daughter was five.  :-)  A little trip down memory lane.....

I know I’ll get a big “Amen!” when I tell you that I ever wonder if my children will grow to be who I am working so desperately for them to be.  Day after day, I feel as if I’m their very own Character Monitor.  That wouldn’t be so bad, but I also serve as their Food Monitor, Sleep Monitor, School Monitor, TV Monitor, Computer Game Monitor, and Friend Monitor.  Every aspect of their lives is monitored by my husband and me. 

To put it bluntly, there are days when I feel like a big, fat failure.  Those are the days when I make myself a homemade Chai Tea (it’s not as good as getting it at Starbucks, but I manage), and disappear into the bedroom when my husband comes home, to watch “Inside the Actor’s Studio” on BRAVO.  I feel so unloved on those evenings.  For me to get to the point where I want to disappear for a while, they have been extremely disobedient, argumentative, and downright grouchy.  And I’ve spent the day correcting, praying, and working with all of that, but after being pounded with it in situation after situation, I start taking it personally.  I feel as if I’m not a good parent, that I am not doing what it takes to really reach them, and that the only way to help them is for me to disappear for a while. 

The other day, my daughter lied to me.  That girl just simply refuses to flush the toilet!  She told me she flushed the toilet when she didn’t.  I didn’t say anything, but sent her to her room since it was naptime, and consulted “For Instructions in Righteousness”. (A great resource, found at www.doorposts.net) What was a good story to read to her to illustrate the consequences of lying?  I chose Adam and Eve.  I read her the story, without any pre-reading sermonizing.  Didn’t even mention her lie, because really, I felt so discouraged.  I didn’t feel I could say anything that would make her mend her ways.  I didn’t even really have any big hope that reading from the Bible would penetrate.  I just read her a story, same as we do everyday before her nap.  But God so encouraged me after I finished reading the story to her.  After I finished, the first thing she said was, “I need to be sorry.”  I asked her why and she said, “For my sin.”  I asked her what sin, and she said, “When I lied to you!”  And we prayed, and she said, “Dear God, Thank You to forgive me for my lie.  Amen.” 

My breath was taken away.  The remorse!  The prayer!  She apologized to me!  And I never said a word.  It was all God’s doing.  Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

And all along I thought it was all the things I was telling my children, over and over, that was going to change their hearts.  I don’t have to be their Everything Monitor.  I can be what God has meant for me to be all along, which is a vessel for Him, their Heart Monitor.  He’s done all the work for me through His Son and His Word. 

Thank you God, and forgive me for thinking that I could change my children’s hearts without You.

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