Re-learning the same lesson

Okay God - I get it.

That is how I feel right now. I get it, I got it last time, and well maybe forgot it, but I get it.

I am so thankful that God does not try to do something in our lives and give up because we are too stubborn to get it quickly. I know I would have given up on me by now! My goodness. I came back from the great conference knowing I need to live by faith and not in my flesh. I got that. I did not equate that to the behavior of my kids or a few other things. It took a day, a not so great day, to be reminded that I am still not living by faith. I am trying too hard to force things and they don't respond well to that.

So I turned to Kristen to help talk me through it, and I knew she would have a clear perspective despite the chicken pox kids (3 of 'em) and her lack of sleep, and her almost due baby, and ...... everything else. But she did not fail to do what I hoped she would. She saw things a bit differently than I was seeing them today. And she was able to get down the some key issues and not the surface ones. I love that about God - he gives us people in our life who can help us pull the weeds in the garden of our heart, and help us identify other things that may need to be pulled too. Anyway she led me to realize I am not giving my eldest enough attention in general. Something I have known for a while but I did not see how our recent issues related to that problem.

So God is saying, meet with me in the morning (have not done this all week - been waking up too late because I am getting to bed too late and not enough time to meet with him - WRONG ANSWER!!) and I will set your course for the day. Put your kids before the computer, friends, the phone, etc, etc. And do your best and I will do the rest. There it is... the Faith part. Trusting him to work on my son's heart about his behavior. Letting go of my need to be his conscience and my desire to make him perfect - Kristen said "perfect, like you?" Ouch! Yes, I get it.

But if my kids do not see me trusting that God will help me, where are they going to learn to do this very difficult life lesson of living by Faith? So I need to start again, thankfully God gives us another morning to start fresh after the night of regrets. So I will take tomorrow as a new day, not a continuation of this one. And I will set aside time to meet with my eldest and try to start filling his cup ever so slowly and ever so intentionally, and maybe together he and I can learn to turn to God to fill our cups instead of getting upset because I cannot control a situation, or acting out to get attention. But first, I will meet with my Lord, and I will ask him to fill my cup so that from the overflow of my cup I have something of value to pour into the cups of those I love.

We will see....