Saturday, December 1, 2012

A Choice to Live Different

Butt face, stupid, both very popular when I was a child.  My little sister answered to them because I am not sure I ever called her by her real name.  But these words did not stay part of my vocabulary.  Especially after I had children I was very careful about what words I used.  I never wanted my little ones to say all those “bad words” that other peoples kids would say. 

Regardless, these words and some other of my childhood favorites have managed to make there way into my children’s vocabulary.  Because of this we have taken ourselves back to a Bible verse we learned a while ago. 

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”  Proverbs 16:24


In this Bible lesson we talked about words that would be sweet, words we would like to hear others say to us.  We also talked about trashcan words, words that were rotten and yucky that we do not like when others say them to us.  Then my kids made a list of words that are sweet and hung it on the wall.

It is hard because they do not hear me say “trashcan” words but they do hear them from other places.  They hear them from other children, cartoons, and movies.  We also talked about how I do know these words but I choose not to say them because those words are not pleasing to God and they too can make that choice. 

When I first found out I was going to be a momma, I was so excited.  I had a list of things that my children would never do that other people’s children did or things that as a mom I would never do that I saw other moms do.  It is so funny looking back on some of those things and knowing now that most of us start with similar list.  As a matter of fact, I was with my cousin a while back and she has three kids, two girls and her youngest a boy about 18 months old.  We were with a large group; I looked down at her son, looked back up at her laughing and said, “ Is your son on a leash?”  She looked right at me as serious as can be and said, “Yes he is and I am comfortable with you judging me because I judged moms like me before I had him.”  Then we both laughed. 

If I were going to seriously stick to that list I would have to keep my kids in a bubble, I would have to keep myself in a bubble.  No, I never wanted to hear “bad words” come out of my children’s mouth but it has happened and some of my family think I keep my kids in a “bubble” because I home school and don’t let them watch a lot of television.  So even in our semi-bubble world we still have to learn to live in the world.  We have to learn that even though the rest of the world may be saying and doing things that are not pleasing to our God we have to CHOOSE to look and live different than the rest of the world. 

2 comments:

  1. Love it, Courtney! I am always refreshed by your real life examples and strong convictions. Can't wait to see you and those sweet kiddos!

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  2. "Differently" not "Different"

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