Innocent Hearts

Most of us think our children are innocent. Don’t we? Of course we do, because they are! When they are young, they see things through innocent eyes and pure hearts. While at our family gathering at my mom and dad’s house on Christmas, Sophie was playing with her new Princess Ariel and Prince Erik Barbie dolls. She had them close together as if they were hugging or dancing. She has seen this on princess movies like Cinderella where Cinderella and her prince dance at the ball. She also sees her Dad and me hug a lot.

Our entire family of about 25 was sitting around my parents’ den talking and checking out each other’s Christmas gifts. I watched Sophie as she played. After she laid the dolls down, I asked her if they were dancing? Nathan heard me and said very loudly, “It looks like they are dancing lying down!” All of the adults burst into laughter including myself. The innocence of his comment was what made it so funny. He had no idea why we were laughing.

I love that about my children. They are still so innocent. That hasn’t happened by chance though. There is enough out there in this world to steal their innocence even at their young ages. Steve and I purposely work to keep that from happening. We monitor what they see on television, they only play educational and age appropriate video games and we only listen to Christian radio. They never watch movies with anything above a PG rating. Even then, we pay close attention to the contents to make sure it is OK. Those magazines at the check-out lines with headlines that make even me blush get turned around quickly to shield Nathan and Sophie from reading the vulgar content on them.

I’m not bragging by any means. I’m just learning more and more that it takes a concerted effort on a parent’s part to protect their children from indecency or things that are too mature for little minds and hearts to understand. I love a quote from Corrie Ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place.  When she was still quite young, Corrie asked her father about something he didn’t think she was ready to know.  This was his wise response:

“It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a heavy load. [speaking of his tool case] It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”

Oh, how much wisdom did this man have! We need to preserve our children’s innocence as long as we can. They should be able to just enjoy the innocence of childhood. They will learn the troubles of adulthood and the perverseness and violence of the world soon enough.

Put the Guilt on Pause

Christmas Morning Fun!!!

More often than not, I have mommy guilt. Guilt when I make one of my children cry even though they deserved the correction. Guilt when I raise my voice. Guilt because I forgot to send lunch money or that we haven’t worked on scripture memorization in weeks. Guilt, guilt, guilt. And of course, there is the concern that none of the things I am teaching them is actually doing any good.

Then those sacred moments happen that let me know Steve and I must be doing something right. That all those lessons and talks have actually touched their hearts and deep down are actually taking root. Moments that remind us that we really do have great kids.

This Christmas had been quite an unusual Christmas. My sweet aunt Bertha that I wrote about in “I want to Leave a Legacy” went home to be with the Lord Dec. 22. I left the kids to be at the hospital several times during the week prior to her death. On the same day, my brother-in-law’s dad also went home to be with the Lord. We attended both funerals on Christmas Eve. Not exactly the joyous Christmas any of us would have chosen.

Even in the midst of the sadness, Christmas morning rolled around with the usual excitement and joy. It was the day Sophie and Nathan had been counting down to. I could hear their anxious laughter through Nathan’s bedroom door as I made them wait until all the Christmas lights were on and their Dad finally made it into the family room. (They were up at 6:30) After they had each opened their three presents from Santa, they did not even ask to open their other presents that were under the tree. They excitedly ran and grabbed Steve’s present and mine and insisted we open our presents first.

Wow, what five and seven year old does that? I was so proud of them that they cared more about our happiness than their own. They wanted us to see what we got for Christmas before they did. They were so sweet. I have to say, I was amazed. Perhaps all the talks of “giving is better than receiving,” and “think of others first” have actually had an impact. They truly practiced these Biblical principles that morning.

So, instead of feeling guilty all the time about something that we have done wrong with our children, it is really okay to look at the things we do right. We can breathe a sigh of relief (at least for the moment) that God is using us to positively impact our precious children.