I talk about my kids on this blog quite often. They're mainly what I write about. There are quite a few of them around here, filling up my time and space.
One of the categories that I share the most about is discipline. Correction, really. It seems pretty natural that a parent would need to correct children, and often. It's a subject that comes up time and again. And again. And yet again.
What I found when some of the Zooligans began to mature beyond the preschool years, is that the way the corrections played out began to change. There were discussions and explanations, and understandings, and mis-understandings.
Sometimes, when correcting and guiding, words would come from my mouth. Words that didn't seem to be all mine. Even though my mouth spoke the words, I was hearing them as though they were being spoken to me. I was the one that needed, desperately, to hear those words. They were fluid ideas, wise thoughts, good advice. I'm pretty sure they weren't my words.
I like to believe that I'm an intelligent person. I educate myself be reading and researching. I think that I can string ideas together into intelligble communication. I might even, on occassion, say something profound. I'm pretty proud of myself when I do this. I don't feel that it happens often enough.
But, profundity isn't what I was feeling when those correct, right words were spilling from me to my children. I was feeling conviction. Whatever I was correcting my children for in that moment was something that I needed to correct in myself, too.
God uses some great tools for teaching us, even the words that come out of our own mouths. I guess I don't don't need to hide behind my kids when I tell share about a great correction moment. I can just come out and say that I learned something great when the Holy Spirit spoke through me to my kids, and I needed to listen, too.
May the prompting of the Holy Spirit be obvious and real for you, too.
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