Heavy heart says a mother of a 10 year old precious Ethiopian little girl. She says this because she is scared, she says this because she is sad, she said this because she is hurt and know she says this with emotions from being 30 weeks pregnant too. I am sharing my heart today not to be little my child or even to put her business out here as some of you might think but I am sharing this situation because its real, its raw and it hurts. To some you may think REALLY?? Is this such a big deal and the answer from my heart is YES it is to me and my family.
Or perhaps maybe just maybe there is another mother who is going through or has gone through this similar experience that can relate with me, encourage me, pray for me and my beautiful child. And then there might be someone out there who is very private that would never share this type of information to another in fear of their child being judged and this just may be an encouragement to them that they are not alone.
I am a home school mom not by my choice at first but of that of our Creator when HE called us to move to Ethiopia. My daughter is in 6th grade this year. As we are currently in the states for a few more weeks before returning home to Addis Ababa Ethiopia I recall a comment I had with my husband. We were discussing how if we lived in the states how could we possibly be sending our lil girl to a middle school here in the states. Scary thought for us that live over seas and are able to protect our kids from many things of this world.
Today was a day where I realized that you can not protect your children from making their own choices no matter where in the world you live, where you decide to send your children to school, or what method of parenting you use to instill the promises of the purpose our Heavenly Father has for them.
As my husband and I parent sometimes we want to control our little beings that HE has given us. We want them to not make the mistakes that we made when were growing up. We want to protect them from all the evil that is out there but guess what…. HE gives us all a choice, a freedom to do what we want to do.
I began to check my child’s work for the week and it hit me that she had been cheating. Oh how my heart dropped. My little Kiki how could she have possibly let this happen? I continued to check her work and it was all done to perfection word from word out of the back of the book that has the answers. I began to get upset when realizing what had taken place in my little girls heart. She had chosen to cheat on her work instead of doing what she knew was the right thing to do. It was her choice.
Know that the past few months we have been struggling with our sweet little Kiki with simple things such as being honest. Its with the little things. She is the type that when she is scared that she gets in trouble that she will lie out of fear. What we have been teaching her is that she gets in more trouble when she lies and that no matter what she thinks the outcome will be she should always be honest.
We have also struggled with simple obedience. Little things like asking her to do something and she says “Yes mam” to only later not do what was asked of her.
Today in my heart I realized that now it is obvious that she has added cheating on her school work to the list of little sins that she has let into her life that are having a negative influence in her day to day life.
Okay so to you may be thinking oh well she is a 10 year old this is what they do, or you may say this is no big deal she will out grow this, but for me this is my little girl and it matters to deep magnitudes.
When we look at this from a spiritual aspect we see the sin that is obvious present. As parents we are frightened at what could be ahead if her heart does not change. Its not a healthy family when you can’t believe the words that are coming out of the other family members mouth.
Oh how my heart is burdened. Could it be the stress of what she is holding in with leaving to go back to Ethiopia in just 2 weeks. Or was it because we were coming to the states to visit that her lies became more intense. Does it have anything to do with the fact that she is adopted, or that her hormones are changing. Yes all of these are very practical reasons but through it all we know that one thing is true. We have 3 sins that are taking place in our daughters life that are present and without making excuses to make them seem okay, more than anything I want my daughters heart to be pure. For her to realize what she is choosing to do because YES she has the choice.
We as adults tend to do this when we have a sin in our life. We will make excuses that make it seem right. We will manipulate situations that allow the sin to well not be looked at as sin but instead be accepted. Or we will go as far as to have people in our lives that will enable us to continue sinning while pushing those that will hold us accountable far, far away. There was a period of my life where this was true and it lead to deep darkness. I want with all my heart to protect my daughter from this.
Yes its lying, cheating and disobedience. Yes its things that kids so call do. Yes there are many reasons why this could be happening BUT one thing this mom knows is that it will lead to many more bad choices that will lead to hurt, deception, separation and loneliness. Its something that we will not sit back and watch steal our sweetness from our little girl yet it is something where we don’t know what to do but pray.
If you are going through something as many may say silly as this do not blame yourself for this but see it as a spiritual attack and fight through this with your little one. Together lets pray for each other and our children so that we may have victory in the tiniest of things so that our children may be free from that crazy thing called sin that we were all born into. Instead of falling into the excuses for our sins lets see them for what they are so that we can defeat them.
To me it’s a BIG deal that has
. Just thought I would share my struggle today.
~carmen~