(S)he who waters. WOTR 2006

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

"These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up".

The day started off fine... we were all headed to the mall to go to Rachel's favorite store, PJ's Pet Shop. However, on the way there, Rich and I got into a fight. Rich didn't seem focused on his driving, and I thought we were close to getting into an accident. Instead of being thankful for not getting into an accident, I got mad at Rich for his "careless driving". Well, Rachel started crying, and then Taylor started crying, I was getting more and more angry, and Rich seemed frustrated...(it was not a scene that reflected our family verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 "Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks...") Needless to say, we did not end up at PJ's... we turned the car around and went back home. In my mind, I thought I was right, and so I was trying to calm them down and appeal to Rachel's sense of reason by trying to make her understand why mommy was so mad at dad. Well, Rachel didn't seem to care about who was right or wrong. The only thing she cared about at that moment, was that I was upset at dad. I kept asking her why she was crying, and she kept saying it was because I was angry at dad...

At home, we had lunch in silence, and went about our day. I even forgot all about the argument until I was putting Rachel to bed that night.

I was pretending to be a character in one of her favorite books; “Miss Nelson Is Missing”, the always courteous and super-nice Miss Nelson. Well, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, to sum up, Miss Nelson is unable to control her classroom, so Miss Viola Swamp shows up one day and puts the children to work. Miss Nelson is kind, and Miss Viola Swamp is mean. (They are both the same person... It's just Miss Nelson in disguise).

At that moment, my heart sank. I couldn't believe her response! I was so sad... I tried not to seem surprised by her answer, and eventually got her to confide in me... and I got a glimpse of what she had hidden in her heart.

Anyways, I was talking to her in my kind, Miss Nelson voice, when I asked her about her day. Embarrassingly, she brought up "the fight" and how it made her feel. (Thank goodness I wasn't her REAL teacher!) And since she brought up how I was angry at her dad, I tried explaining to her again, (but this time as Miss Nelson), why her mom would respond like that. With her eyes glazing over, she just turned to me and said "I like you better". Surprised by her answer, I responded in my kind Miss Nelson voice; "Why, Rachel? Don't you know how much your mommy loves you?"

And then I remembered something that I had learned in my small group... Too often, as parents, we are so busy that we end up talking TO our children and not WITH them. In Deut 6:6-7, God commands that we have to teach them diligently as we go about our day. In other words, it's not in just in telliing them, but in living it as well. It has to be real in my life in order for her to trust and believe what I teach her.

Proverbs 20:5 says, "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out." Instead of trying to understand the situation from Rachel's point-of-view, I was only concerned with explaining my point-of-view....

She thought about it for a second, and said, "yeah, but.... you're ALWAYS nice…. Sometimes my mom is nice, and sometimes she's not nice".

That night, I turned to Rachel as her mom, and asked for her forgiveness. Rachel responded by saying: "Say sorry to dad"... and "Say sorry to God, too, mom"... and that’s exactly what I did.

Tammy Kim