Setting the Example

As I sit and watch my children swinging.  And as I observed my now four year old riding her first bike on our walk earlier, I seriously wonder where all this time has gone.  I know I was there every day of their lives, minus a few spent with grandparents of course.  But it still seems like it was only yesterday that I had a newborn (now 2) and a 2 year old (now 4).  At that stress induced time, I really wondered how longed those days would last.  I really couldn’t wait for them to be over.  Sure I had moments where I felt blessed.  But over all I just felt overwhelmed.  I didn’t like when people told me how precious these days are.  All I could think was come live in my shoes for a minute.  I really spent so much time wishing for them to grow up, even just a little, so I could have a minute to breathe.  Even now I still have thoughts like that.  People tell me how precious and sweet my girls are and I think you don’t have to live with them all of the time.  But I am beginning to see how I really am missing it.  I mean they are still young and learning.  Of course they will make messes, get into stuff they shouldn’t, fight, cry, and whine; generally do every single thing I wouldn’t want them to!  I have expected them to behave as though they know all the things I know and to be thinking the way I do.  And even as I type that sentence it seems so ridiculous that I would think that!  How could I ever expect two little girls to know everything I do?  How could I expect them to control their anger, when I don’t control mine very well?  How do they know to keep their rooms clean when I don’t?  How can they learn to respect each other when I don’t respect them?  They are a reflection of me, ouch!  They are around me 99 percent of the time, so where do I think they pick up all these attitudes and habits?  Where else?  Me!!  I should be the one who is teaching them what the fruits of the spirit really look like; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Sure I have my awesome mom days, but over all I am not setting a good example of these things at all.  I definitely make sure their basic needs are met, but I fail to go much deeper than that.  I get so caught up in trying to make it through the day.  I don’t think that every single day I could do perfectly, but that’s always where teaching them to have grace on forgiveness would come in handy.  I think a good day is everyone ate well, actually put clothes on (not just stayed in jammies) and we didn’t fight about everything.  I know I have thought a lot that I would not want my kids to be like me.  But in the end, I really can’t just hope that somehow they will learn all of these things magically.  I have to be the one to step up and show them how to live.  Not to just float through life trying to do as little as necessary each day.  I want them to truly live life.  I want them to exhibit the fruits of the spirit in their daily lives.  I want them to love, I want them to know joy, to have peace no matter what the circumstance, to have patience with others and with the Lord, to be kind to everyone, to be good people, to be faithful to the Lord and to anyone they are in relationship with, to have a gentle spirit and to exhibit self control.   The Lord has entrusted me with two very special gifts and I have spent so much time seeing them as a hindrance in my own life.  In a world where everything is at our fingertips and it gets so easy to compare ourselves with everyone else, I want my girls to be so much different.  I want them to be confident in whom they are and not worried about who they are not!  But first, I have to show them how to live like that.  I have to walk as a confident woman.  I have to take the time each day to teach them.  I need to keep my eyes open in order to see the opportunities for those teaching moments.  It is imperative that I quit letting the days go by, and learn how to truly live each day!