Going Home

Towards the end of the last school year, I packed up the girls and headed out to pick up the boys from school. They can walk home alone, and do about half the time. The rest of the time I pick them up. Usually walking, occasionally with the car if we have somewhere else to go.

On the day in question, the school bell had rung and we saw the boys walking toward us from a couple of blocks away. They decided to hide. They had done this before, and then jumped out to scare us as we got close. This time they ran around a corner. Waited until we got close and then ran away. I called to them, and waved my arms around - but they didn't come. So we turned around and went home. They walked home another way and beat us there. They were sitting on the porch step laughing when we got home.

Their old school had uniforms. Their new school does not. It makes me sad,
because I could dress them alike without seeming like the weird mom.  

Oh, I was MAD. But I had a couple of blocks to cool off, so I reacted calmly. I simply got them their snack and informed them of the consequences of their disobedience. They were so upset when they realized that they had lost screen privileges for a week. Because I was being so unfair! They would not have run away if they had known I was going to take away their phones! They were too far away to hear me calling, so how could they have known I wanted them to come? It wasn't fair that I should punish them when they didn't know they had done something wrong.

Of course, we have rules about which way they should walk home from school, so that I can find them in an emergency. And rules about coming when I call them. But they were still upset that I hadn't run after them and explained exactly what they were choosing when they decided to run away from me.

It gave me a lot to think about. How often in my life I have made decisions, egged on by peer pressure and my delight at my own cleverness. And how hard it sometimes is to have to swallow the consequences knowing full well that I could have avoided the whole thing if I had just been in the right place at the right time.

And it reminded me of teaching the girl's youth group in church. How I loved those girls! I still love them. And it broke my heart when I had prayed about them and felt that there was something I needed to teach them, and they ignored me - or didn't show up at all. A lot of my girls weren't getting a lot of healthy examples at home. Not of positive religious experiences or even examples of healthy adult behavior. And because they never had anyone teach them, and they never bothered to learn, their lives are going to be harder. I've seen many people run away from the very thing that would protect them, and it is so sad.

Independent and strong willed? These two? No way!

I felt like this was a really good analogy for the gospel. God gives us rules and expects us to follow them, and when we do we are happy. When we don't we miss out on blessings. And, like my kids, we complain that it is not fair that God doesn't just give us all the things we want right when we want them. But like my boys did that day, we assume that we know what the goal is, and we think we've met that goal even though we did it our own way.

But I wasn't walking to meet the boys because I didn't think they could get home on their own. Their baby sisters had had a rough day, and I was hoping that spending some time with their big brothers (who they adore) would help them feel better. I was asking for their help, trying to teach them to be aware of others' needs, to serve. Instead they deliberately went to a place where they couldn't hear my voice. They were selfish, and assumed that their journey home was only about getting themselves from point A to point B.

It always makes me sad when I see friends acting like they can keep themselves distant from God and still receive all the blessings they feel they deserve. And I really do feel like that sort of behavior is only motivated by selfishness, and deliberately avoiding service to our brothers and sisters here on earth.

I'm hopeful that this will be something that I can use as a teaching moment for my kids. (Maybe when we've had some space from it, and they can talk about it nicely) Part of the problem was that they were envisioning their phones as some sort of right, as though they deserved them and got them all on their own. Instead of as a gift from their parents, whom they laughed at as they ran away. So they were shocked when they realized that we had given them their phones to use as a teaching tool, and that they couldn't have them if they weren't following all the rules.