and if our God is for us...

What a wonderful Counselor and mighty God we serve. These past couple days I have started something new. Every time the boys are acting out, not listening, being disrespectful or ignoring me I call them aside and make them repeat a Bible verse that relates to that offense. Sounds harsh? Well I make them repeat it 10 times, how's that for this tough mommy? Funny thing is that an amazing thing happened tonight when I enacted this new discipline technique. After the second time of using it Ian did something a little unusual... He wept. At first I wondered what was wrong because he was rubbing his eyes but after I realized that wasn't what he was doing I hugged him and asked what was wrong. Was it humility? No, this was the true act of repentance, the way God wants us to respond to his diclipline. It occurred to me that when I'm acting horribly and not obeying God I hurt his heart, it truly aches as mine did for Ian but God loves me so much that he allows me to fall on my knees and repent of my sin and ask for forgiveness just as Ian did. He said the verse that I read to him and had him repeat made him sad because he knew that he wasn't doing what God asked him to do. How completely profound that was for me that a child of only 6 years old taught me, an adult of 39 years what true repentance looks like. Thank you God for showing me your ways and for giving me such a tremendous gift. <3