words fitly spoken . . .

I know I’ve written about my kids being that still, small voice of God to me sometimes.

So many times I’ve been convicted by their words and their actions and have been forced to reconsider my words and my actions.

And while later, after the fact, I’m prone to lean toward being pleased with my children for their clarity of thought and their purity of purpose, during the moment of the revealing of truth I am blindsided by something else less flattering although equally familiar.

Pride.  Humility.  A quick flash of frustration that a nine-year-old has a higher degree of sensitivity than myself.

You know, feelings like that.

And so, yes, this is another one of those stories.

It’s a common fact that child number six sometimes receives different levels of training than say, child number one.

And it is true around our house, particularly this summer, I may or may not have become a bit less, ummm, exact about Otto Fox maintaining the proper rules and regulations of Keigley family life.

There are some situations in which I have noticed this lack of discipline on the part of my three-year-old baby man.

And, much to my shame, some situations in which I have grown a bit oblivious toward his lack of discipline.

Which is what brings me to the occasion of one child pointing out the lack of training in another child.

Our family was at Target recently.  It was an evening and Target was air-conditioned and we needed a few of those too-good-to-miss-back-to-school-prices on glue sticks and notebooks.

The boys had wandered down the Lego aisle and were at the far end from the girls and me.

I said to Otto, “Son, please come here.”

He turned his blonde little head, looked at me and said, “Hold on, Mommy.  I need to look at this.”  He had one tiny index finger in the air.

I think I asked him one more time, with a similar response, before I stood where I was and sighed.

“Why does Otto do this?” I asked the air.

London, by my side, looked up at me.  She was serious and she was kind and her voice was appropriate.

“Mommy, why do you let him do that?”

And so I stood in Target, suddenly self-aware.

Aware that my laziness in requiring first time obedience for my youngest son was neither beneficial to him, nor to me, nor to my other children watching me parent.

Aware that my lack of foresight, my lack of follow-through, will result in an outcome I do not desire.

And so I was gently chastised by the wisdom from my blonde Lego-playing daughter.

And I was reminded of the funny methods that God will use when we forget to pay attention to what He has already shown us.