With Christmas approaching I thought I would share this. I relayed a story to my older children when they were younger that had affected the way that they do something. Here is the story. I used to love to wrap presents differently. I may put them in extra boxes, so the person unwrapping had to open multiple boxes. I may put beads or something in them so if they shook them they would be confused as to what it was. There was one particular time that I had someone that I was exchanging Christmas presents with. I let them know ahead of time that they were going to have to work for this present. This was because it was in multiple boxes. Now I’ll add here that if I did do this the gift that they were getting was going to be worth the work. So the time to exchange gifts arrived. They dug through the wrapping paper and boxes to get their gift and they loved the gift once they got to it. They had already given me a gift, but then they handed me another gift. It was in a large box and I could tell by the look on their face that this was going to be a payback. I dug through everything and finally arrived at the gift. It was a box of cereal and I was not happy. I was honestly hurt. I did not say a word, but laughed it off. To me though an unspoken rule had been broken. The gift was not worth the work. This changed something in me. That was the last time that I ever wrapped a gift like that. I still gave gifts, but they are always wrapped normally. My children grew up knowing this. Recently I had a conversation with my daughter Hannah and she told me that she doesn’t wrap presents like that either because of that story. You see, something that had happened to me had affected my children and the way they did something. This isn’t necessarily a harmful thing in this situation. Sometimes though we as parents let things that happened to us affect our children in a harmful way. We don’t deal with an issue in our lives so it carries on down to them and they have to deal with it. We should not be allowing negative things to reach our children because we don’t want to deal with them and fight the battle ourselves. As I’ve heard said, “You know why David’s children never had to fight a giant? Because David and his army killed them all.” So slay your giants so your children don’t have to. Then spend your time teaching them the right way to live.
Eph 6:4 EasyEnglish Fathers, do not make your children angry. But instead, teach them as they grow up. Teach them about the right way in which the Lord wants them to live their lives.
Excerpt From Something Else To Brew On