setting the example

On Christmas day I took the kids up to the mountains to play in the snow.  When I was growing up in Chicago, we always had snow on Christmas day and that's how it should be, so up to the mountains we went until we found piles of deep snow. The deeper the better!  My son and I tried climbing up a hillside while the rest of our party ate lunch by the car. But the hillside turned out to be way deeper than we anticipated.  We laughed and fell, repeatedly.  My little boy, who is working on growing up into a real gentleman, said to his mama, "I'll go first.  You can just step in my footsteps and you won't sink in as much."

What a little doll he was.  It's usually my role to blaze the trail for my kids.  But he was man enough to do it.  But that got me thinking about walking before my kids.  And teaching them how to then walk before their own kids.  It's more than just guiding them or giving them directions. Because we all know that children learn more from watching than from obeying.

Yesterday I walked into the bathroom about 1/2 hour after my son took his shower.  I noticed his clothes piled up on the ground and was like, "Um, hello?"  He looked a little sheepish and then picked up his clothes.  I thought to myself, How do I get these kids to pick up after themselves without having to remind them all the time?  

Today, I went into my bathroom, hours after my own shower, and had to step over a pile of my own clothes on the floor.  Now, I know what you're thinking:  You're the one setting the bad example, mama.  But that's not fair.  I had to rush out of the shower in a hurry and didn't have time to pick up my stuff.  I cleaned it up as soon as I had time. And besides, I'm the one cleaning it up so I'm allowed to leave it if I want to.

All good excuses but those excuses mean nothing to the kids that are watching me.

So I had to think about some of the other examples I set for them.  The other day, when I was frustrated with the incompetent Verizon representatives because of the mixup on my account, I may have lost my cool and said something to the effect of, "How the hell am I supposed to verify this information?" and then quickly turned to my kids and half-jokingly said, "Please don't repeat what I just said."  My kids know how to talk and they're respectful about it and they understand that sometimes Mommy gets frustrated and "hell" and "crap" come out.  But still, I wish I didn't mess up sometimes.

I can come up with a list, longer than you think, about the bad examples I should try to avoid.  And I can try my hardest to be better about them, but I will fail because I'm not perfect, nor do I ever expect to be.

So instead of focusing on what I shouldn't do, I thought about what I can do to set the proper examples.  What kind of footsteps do I want them stepping into?

I left my Bible out on my table today because I was in the middle of something.  Usually, when my daughter wakes up and comes downstairs in the morning, I put away my devotional stuff and cuddle with her for a while.  But today, my stuff was left out and I walked into my kitchen and thought, Huh, that's weird.  I've never seen my Bible open and laid out on the kitchen table like that. Do my kids even know that I read my Bible?  Shouldn't I be setting this example for them?  We read the Bible as a family, sure, but do they know that I do this on my own?  I remind my son to have his worship in the morning but is he seeing me have my own too?  They know I "meet with God" but I don't think they have any idea what I'm doing during that time because my devotion and study time happens when they're asleep or away.  And all this time I was telling my son to have his own worship without actually showing him.  How did I miss that?

Tonight my daughter was clingy because she had been throwing up today.  She wanted to cuddle with me as she went to sleep so I brought my Bible and computer into the bedroom to read while she nestled up next to me.  She laid her head on my shoulder and pointed to my Bible, "Why did you color in your Bible?" She wanted to know.  Then she wanted to know what the different colors meant.  Yes, I have color-coordinated the highlightings in my Bible.  Does that surprise anyone?

Anyway, I continued to read for a while as she lay next to me.  I was all caught up in Jesus' admonitions to the Pharisees when I heard her tiny little voice read, "So I say to you:  Ask and it will be given to you..."  She was pointing to a pink-highlighted section and reading it.  She read the entire paragraph.  And she hardly knows how to read!  She's been a little slower on the reading skill, and although I work with her, I don't feel it necessary to push her.  So I was so surprised that on her own, she decided this was worth the effort!

If you're not a parent, you can't begin to imagine the heart-warming joy that fills the atmosphere of the room as you witness your emerging reader sounding out the sacred words of Jesus.  The first words she ever read from the Bible were Jesus' words!  A promise that if we ask, He will give.  That if we search, we will find.  And if we knock, He will open the door.  I will print these words out and frame them and put them in her room, for sure.

And I sit here, typing, as she is fast asleep next to me (giving me all her germs), and I'm thinking that none of this would have taken place if I had continued to keep my devotion time all to myself.  This experience motivates me to continue to find ways to blaze the pathways for my children in the spiritual disciplines I want them to follow.

This much I can do. I can't be perfect and I can't always set a noble example of behavior for them.  But I can show them how I worship my Savior, so that even if I say crap or hell a few too many times, they will know where to go to locate their true north so that they can someday find their way Home.