The words came out of my mouth before they were fully processed in my mind.
“Don’t let the sin in your heart become sin in your hands, sweetie.”
The Holy Spirit spoke through a donkey once, and He can also let a mama open her mouth and testify. I, too, have known anger in my heart, and I have seen it make ugly things when it seeps into my hands.
Before I had children, this wasn’t a problem I faced so frequently. There have been times since, though, that a child’s anger has fanned the flames of my own burning temper.
Anger at selfish children can make me want to lock myself away in the bathroom with a bubble bath and a magazine so I don’t have to be offended by them any more.
Frustration with my busy husband makes my own busy-ness seem like an easy escape from a complicated conversation.
These are my favorite people in the whole wide world. How has it come to this? When anger prevails, a little less Jesus-love flows from Mama to everyone else. And everyone needs Mama’s love everyday.
How will the children sort out how God lovingly died on a cross for them, but Mama burns hot and fierce when the day goes differently than she planned?
How will my spouse correctly value me if I don’t make myself precious to him?
How can God make me a little more like Jesus every day if I always get everything my way? Let’s be honest, that’s what I am really mad about. I want things my way.
I sit in a lovely home that feels more like a desert wasteland for my soul, and I wish for a Promised Land. The giants I face seem big, the river uncrossable, and courage seeps from my heart.
But those words that came out of my own mouth point me to the cross. I was speaking to a boy, but God was speaking to me.
“Don’t let the sin in your heart become sin in your hands, sweetie.”
I turn my angry heart from the swirl of life and hold it out to God. In faith I step into the middle of the Jordan and lead my family away from my sin. With one courageous step of faith into that river and one mighty prayer of faith to our God, I can show these sweet children the way to let love change them from the inside out.
There is a deeper hope of my heart than to simply have my own way. I want the six of us to love one another more than ourselves, and God most of all. I want smiles and laughter to linger over meals and moments. My dream is of a home full of thick and hearty love so that we will still feast on the memory of it many years from now.
I don’t know where we will all end up twenty years from now, but I know they will carry our love with them wherever they go. That love starts at the cross and conquers my own heart so I can build it into our lives one moment at a time.
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.
Proverbs 14:1
Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.
He will receive blessing from the Lord
and vindication from God his Savior.
