Why is it that every time I commit to working on writing the Bible study for Commission, I get slammed?! Yesterday the boys woke at 6 a.m. and never did go back to sleep, but they were the least of the problems of the day. I had to practically drag Charis out of bed at 8:15, wanting to get us on our school schedule and keep us on task for the day. I gave her 2 things she had to do before breakfast (which I am trying to make sure get done every day before breakfast): dress for the day and make her bed. I went to my room to dress myself and make our own bed, and she was downstairs before me. I asked if she had made her bed, and she said yes. We did our Bible stories and so on, and then when I was getting Arden settled for room time, I noticed her door was shut. I decided to just peek in, and sure enough, her bed looked exactly the same as it had when I left her room earlier. So I had to deal with two issues: disobedience and lying. We made it through that and had a pretty good school time. Because we had taken about 15-20 minutes to deal with the sin issues, I decided to skip the extra math practice sheet and just have her do her math test with Ted in the evening.
Meanwhile, my friend Sarah emailed to ask if we wanted to meet them at the park or else come over to her house. We ended up going to their house for lunch (I took cantaloupe and cookies) and had a good time...until Hannah had a major meltdown and Sarah had to deal with her own issues! I felt so bad for Sarah, but I didn't just want to ditch her and pick up our kids and head home. So I pushed Taran and Arden on the swings and played with the others in the backyard while Sarah tried to deal with Hannah.
We left shortly after that, and overall our exit went all right, though Charis did have a moment when she got "The Look" on her face when I told her to get off the swing. We got home, and she had 2 pairs of shoes in the van to bring in, which she did. She left her socks, however, so I asked her to please come get them and put them in the laundry basket. She went back to the van, crawled in, and came out, but as she came back in the house, where I was waiting for both her and Arden, she put her hands behind her back and wouldn't let me see them.
I asked, "Do you have your socks?" She nodded with a weird smile on her face. I told her to put them in the laundry basket, and she shuffled past me and waved her hands over the basket, but I could tell she hadn't put anything in. I looked inside, no socks. I asked her where her socks were. She wouldn't answer. I went back to the van and didn't see them where they were to begin with, so I told her, "All right, if you're being silly and have them in your shirt or shorts, that's a fine trick, but now it's time to obey Mommy." She didn't say anything, and I could tell by looking at her that they weren't on her person. I told her to get her socks, wherever they were. She crawled back in the van and reached behind Arden's seat (by the sliding door) and got the socks. She had come all the way out to the van, crawled inside, gotten her socks, only to wad them up and hide them!!! Why in the world didn't she just pick them up and put them in the laundry basket like I asked?! She expended the exact same amount of energy in disobeying as she would have if she had just obeyed! So, once again, we went up to her room and dealt with the disobedience/lying issue. I grounded her to her room for the whole afternoon.
It's so much simpler (both for her and for me) just to obey in the first place, rather than disobey and then lie about it afterwards. I talked to her about the fact that her sin would always find her out, that I ask God to help me know when she lies, and that even if I don't know right away that she has lied, God knows, and chances are I will find out, too.
Sigh. It's depressing and discouraging to have to deal with all these things, and I might add that I only got a grand total of 3 paragraphs written on the Commission study yesterday morning! Guess I need to pray up a bit more before I can work on this without all the spiritual attack!
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