Parenting is a trial and error process…at least for me anyway!
Whoever coined the phrase “Terrible Twos” must not have had a three year old! Age 3 is way harder than age 2 for me. One of the things I’ve been trying is to help Caleb think about his actions and decide, “Is this a good choice? Or a bad choice?” (You’ll hear those phrases A LOT around out house these days!) Sometimes when I drop Caleb off at school as I’m saying good-bye I’ll give him one last little reminder to “make good choices today, honey.” So now, sometimes when I’m saying good-bye, before I say anything, he says, “good-bye mommy, make good choices”!
But this is not a post about parenting.
My counselor recently gave me an excerpt from a book about forgiveness. I think I had it in my mind somehow that I couldn’t forgive Tim until I was healed, or not hurting, or had it ALL figured out or….something. But this book was talking about the ability to forgive where I am today. I don’t have to wait until I have EVERYTHING all together before I can say I forgive. It was very freeing.
My counselor also talks a lot about a “Thought Exchange Process”. When negative, unhealthy thoughts and memories enter my brain, as they OFTEN do, I need to choose to not only stop them, but replace them with something else.
One of my most powerful exchanges lately is choosing to forgive. I have to do it often. I need to “make a good choice”. And it’s hard. But when I can stop myself and pray, and remind myself of the truth that Tim is already forgiven by God, then I can make the choice to forgive him…again, and again and AGAIN.
It’s hard. I say that a lot…everything is hard.
But it makes such a difference! God has forgiven Tim, and He can give me the strength to forgive him as well. EACH time I need to. And when I forgive Tim, it takes the power AWAY from his bad choices, and gives it back to God, where I want to power to be.
Choices. So many choices. Each moment of each day.
So, when I pray with Caleb I not only pray for God to help Caleb make good choices, but I ask God to help Mommy make good choices too. We both need help making good choices throughout our days!
