How's your heart?

Occasionally, when I can tell Gemma's having a rough day, I ask "how's you heart?". The other night when I asked she replied "a lot of good and a little bit of bad..." When she started kindergarten a couple of months ago we had a conversation about all the new things she'd experience... things I'd rather her not experience, glimpses into the lives of new friends might not look like ours and we've spent a small eternity protecting her from the hard things. 

We talked about being kind, and that sometimes people won't be kind to her. We talked about her responsibility to be kind anyways... So often when we're having heavy conversations a little part of me says she's too young, she can't grasp this. Then she takes the lesson and creates a metaphor that her brain can consume and she ends up teaching me a lesson. There is this constant ebb and flow in the dialogue between us. She's so incredibly smart, really they all are... much smarter than we give them credit for. 

When we talked about things like lying, making fun of other children, excluding friends... I told her this stuff invites ugliness into your heart. It makes it much harder to be a shining light, like Jesus wants us to be, because those things are dark and spread darkness. "like poison..." she said... "heart poison." Exactly like poison. So when I can see an opportunity I ask her... how's your heart? And she tells me about the friends who wouldn't let her play, and the loneliness that brought. She tells me about the bad feeling that came after saying a mean thing, and how it didn't make her feel better but saying sorry probably will... and as she does I pray... God give me the wisdom to parent her and guide her to the place you've called her to. 

You hear it said often, "they don't come with instructions..." and how true that is. All of our kids are so incredibly different. They each present these conundrums. Especially with Gemma because of the age she's at... I so often look at Brandon, my face a equation mark... where do we go from here? Because in a world like this one, set apart is not always easy and enjoyable... We want to teach our kids to get even, when Jesus asks us to teach them love and peace. How much harder when it's us, their parents, that want to rage and conspire, calculate how to get to the desired bottom line... when all He's asking us to do is trust him with the next 10 minutes. 

All I can say, is thank God for his grace...

xoxo

Miranda