Trustworthy

My little four year old is a super sweet little girl. We have so much fun together. She is helpful, fun, obedient...of course we have difficult moments, but overall she is SO much fun! It hasn't always been that way with her. We went through some extremely difficult times during her ones, twos and threes! It is a relief to be through those and really be able to enjoy time with her more. Life has generally gotten easier by the day since she was born!

One thing that has progressively gotten harder though is lying. Eeeek! Not a fun issue to deal with. We tell her that lying is a hurtful way to treat someone and we will not treat each other that way in our family...then she has to sit in a timeout. We have also added another element to our response.

A accepted Jesus the summer she turned three. We were unsure about it-thinking she was too young. Who are we to decide that though? God gave her the sweet little faith of a child and she responded to Him to the best of her understanding.

We are trying to teach her that when she is truthful, we and others will trust her to be truthful. When she consistently tells lies, then we and others lose trust in her truthfulness. In all of this we are constantly reminding her of the truth of who she is "in Christ." Since she has trusted Him as Lord, His Spirit lives in her and has united Himself with her. Therefore, she has the trustworthy nature of Christ as the core of who she is. She is no longer a sinner in her true identity, but she now can identify with Christ and His nature. Instead of telling her that she is not being trustworthy, we have changed our semantics. We say, "The truth is that you are trustworthy because Jesus lives in you and He is trustworthy. However, you are not making choices that go along with what is true about you. You are making untrustworthy choices."

So far, it has effected her. We have seen a decrease in the amount of lies she tells and we also feel a very intimate bond with her on an emotional level. Here is one of her lies from last night...

Matt and I went on our first real date since L was born!!! We had a really fun dinner out while my parents watched the three girls. They put the girls to bed and everything seemed ok. Then S had to go potty. Mimi had baby and Papa took her to the bathroom. When he brought S back to bed, A was standing in the middle of her bed. Papa said, "A, lay down and put your head on your pillow." She answered, "But Mommy lets me do this!" Papa, "Mommy lets you sleep standing up?" A, "Yes! Mommy lets me sleep standing up!" Haha!

Needless to say, Papa did not fall for this one and he asked her to lay her head on her pillow anyway. Mommy has said some crazy things according to my kids! :)