God gave me an idea...it came in the middle of the night so i know it was from him and not from me (i just woke up with the idea sunday morning...had to have been from Him) - the basic idea is that i want to spend time with each of my kids where i just let them talk -- i will not interrupt, i will not ask unnecessary questions, i will not try to "guide" the conversaton -- i'll just let them talk! (some of you are going - and this is just now occuring to you, dianna?). my "goal" is 10 minutes each week with each kid (at first i thought 10 minutes each day...but i think 10 minutes each week is more realistic). of course - of course - i'm spending more than 10 minutes a week talking to my children and interacting with them -- this is just 10 solid uninterrupted minutes for them - 10 minutes where they have the freedom to say ANYthing they want...to talk about anything....10 minutes for me to practice listening....10 minutes each week that will hopefully lay the foundation for hours of trusted conversations in the future.
i had my first go round yesterday. i explained to caroline what i wanted to do...that i just wanted to give her a few minutes to talk about anything she wants - that i want to hear her thoughts and heart...that i want to practice listening and giving her my undivided attention (no multi-tasking!!). so i said "talk to me...about anything you want." and here are the first words out of the girl's mouth: "well....i've had kind of a rough life..."
i'm still laughing about that. luckily i didn't laugh at her in the moment - i just swallowed my smile and said "oh you have? tell me about it..." and she proceeded to tell me about how her brother hit her that one time...and the little boy she tried to make friends down at the park threw sand at her....and how it's hard when she doesn't get her way.
sweet caroline. she's right...it is rough when people aren't so nice to us....and we get sand thrown at us....and we don't get our way.
so i kept listening and she kept talking....and the conversation ended with her teaching me a dance. not sure how we got from her tough life to dancing in kitchen....but that feels like a pretty good picture of what God does for us - takes us from sharing all our woes and troubles to letting us dance with Him. He's such a good dancer.
