Somehow I’ve noticed that my middle child (who turns four in December) is still strugging with some things. She still screams when her sister does something she doesn’t like. She still struggles with obedience. She does want to please, but sometimes she misses the mark considerably. What’s more, I notice her two year old sister imitating some of her sinful habits

When she was twenty-two months, I had a new baby. I was very sick for the first few months, and I was distracted because I picked that season to teach an online class. I’m wondering whether I was too distracted (some things genuinely out of my control– like three children, like illness) to be consistent and teach her the things I thinks she should have learned by now.

But then I look at her personality, and realize that I was working on those things, and she wasn’t learning them quickly. Perhaps had I been the perfect parent, she would still be learning.

Regardless, it’s easier to compare and despair (Susannah Wesley broke the will of all her children by age two, and even though I do not consider her a role model, the standard still exists.) It’s easier to focus on the past and look at what I could have done differently.

What I should do is thank the Lord for the opportunity to teach her today. I should lay aside the weights that distract me from developing a relationship with God. I should lay aside anything that’s hindering me from taking the time to teach her today.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Hebrews 12:1-3

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.Philippians 3:13-14

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