Fruits of My Labor

This is what I have felt this last week. Those of you who are Mom's out there, at times, wonder if our small children get what we try and teach them. Well this week I had two situations where I saw the results of listening to God and his guidance for being a mother. There are times I choose not to listen and I can tell the difference in my attitude along with my children's reaction. It is a daily choice to embrace the little personalities and how to guide them to be all God wants them to be, individually.

First we have Dominic. Oh what a long road we have been down in a short 25 months! But just the other day I was folding laundry and he comes around the corner with clothes out of the pile of laundry waiting to be done in the hallway and carried it to the laundry room. He is starting to catch on to what it means to be a part of our household by helping! I just had to grab him and hug him since he made this choice all on his own. Of course he continued and I got the big cheeese for the camera!

Then, Katelynn was honored with a Character Counts Award on Monday. She was excited to be able to sit on the stage for lunch and get wristband with "Caring". Her teacher wrote that:

"Katelynn is a wonderfully creative and happy student. Katelynn respects her classmates and follows the classroom and school rules. She is self-disciplined and is always striving to do her best. Katelynn is building a reputation of being a loyal friend."

After she got her award, I told her how proud Daddy and I were of her, and she told me God is proud too! It brought tears to my eyes because when she is in trouble we tell her that we have been chosen as her parents to keep her in line with what God expects. She gets very upset when we say that, so it was nice to see that she has connected that eventhough God is upset when we sin, he rejoices when we are obiedient.

It is so easy to take complete credit when my kids do what is expected by Dan and I, but we have to give credit to God who created these precious children and entrusted Dan and I to raise them while on earth. I felt a sense of refueling with both situations to continue down the path we have been on.