Sunday.....

Blah! That is how I feel! So I am really hoping that as I type this, my feelings of "blah" won't come out in the writing. It is 8:15pm and I have been trying to get to posting something ALL day! When I don't post for a few days, I miss it, and then I feel like I have so much to blog about that I simply will not be able to catch up! Any of you other bloggers out there feel that way???

 This post is about Sunday-

There is no disputing- God is good. Or He is faithful. Or He is gracious. Or He is loving. But lately, He has shown me just how gentle He is.

If you know me, or maybe just from reading; you may have discovered that I am a black and white, type A, kind of girl. With that, means that sometimes my edges can be kind of rough, especially in the parenting department.

One thing God has shown me, is that if I continually ask Him to show me guidance, wisdom and timing to teach my girls, He will! It still isn't very easy, but it is good.

God has been very gentle lately as well. What I mean by that, is that changes have been made in our home, tough ones, decisions to be made, and God has given a great peace with them. A gentle peace.

Sunday was a hard day, and yet a great one. A day that could have sent me into wanting to throw in the parenting towel, but instead fighting for what is so important to Tim and I;  a good relationship with our girls.

Tim, has always been the listener. He has so much patience, in fact, that is why I continually tell him that his patience is why God gave us three girls. He has been like that from the beginning; wanting our girls to come to us for anything and everything, no matter how hard. He believed that if we spent more time listening (him) instead of lecturing (me) then they would feel our love, and know that we understand them, want to help them and we truly want what's best for them.

Eight years ago we got rid of our television, meaning, all cable, even local channels. We have "snow"in other words. We have our television for movies. With the girls being 12, 11 and 8 years old.... you do the math, they have never come home and plopped on the couch and flipped through the channels like most of America.

We also, have not given much time to electronics period. For Christmas about 5 or 6 years ago, someone gave us a brand new playstation2 with a few games and we have played it maybe 10 times. And if you are thinking that Tim and I must not have grown up with TV and games, and that is why we don't care that much for them; then think again! We had it all, and Tim even worked at Diamond Gems or Jim's  (which was it?? video arcade) in the mall while we were dating.

Even though there is much "trash" on t.v., our main reason for "giving" it up, was to teach us, how to use our time more wisely. Instead of making sure the kiddos where fed and in bed by the time Survivor came on. Or not having your friends over for dinner on Thursday night because you might miss your show. It forced us to look into other options like, reading more, and even reading together, playing a board game or cards, entertaining etc.

One of the challenges with making this decision though, was that when our girls got older, making sure that once they had the "freedom", that because they didn't have a TV, Game station, ipod, cell phone, computer, that they would learn to use them wisely and not flee to them because they didn't have them before. AND another big challenge..... feeling totally excluded from conversations with friends because they don't know what their friends are talking about when talking about a character on a t.v show they don't know about, or a song they've never heard, that happen to have just topped the charts for the 6th week in a row....HELLO??? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN???
  When and how to slowly introduce them to that freedom was key. That was the part we wait on the Lord for.

Well, on Sunday, God gave us the opportunity to listen to our kids and to show them how much we love them.

When expressing despair on not knowing but a few lines of some Taylor Swift song (only cause I've heard them over and over again by my friends, Jillian explained), our girls shared how isolated they feel that they don't know those songs.

***I will pause here to state, that Tim and I LOVE music. In fact, my husband has gone through every stage...when I met him, it was alternative, then after marriage...country, then after a high stressful job....classical,  you name it, we've listened to it! And enjoyed it! ****

We also, are not JUST His Radio 94.3 listeners, although 95% of the time our children are in the car or at home with us, we are.

All this to say, that on Sunday night the girls threw out songs or artists, we looked them up on the computer, downloaded them and then listened to them....together. Then, we let the girls tell us what they heard. We would talk about them, talk about the message in them. Talked about the tone the singer was singing, the example that singer was setting.

Of course most songs are about love, that is a given. And love isn't bad. Love is a good thing. But if the songs talked about stealing a boyfriend, sneaking out of the house, life sucks, or I need you now or I don't think I can live anymore and to those effects, we would give the thumbs down, and they would know why. But if not, we would download them on their MP3's and they could listen to them with freedom.


It was a long night. But a great night. We learned something about our girls. They came to us. And they learned something about us. We listened to them. God is good. He is Gentle.

Good night!