we'll call it my parenting woes (part 3)

Today, in response to my previous post, I got this comment from someone called 'Hannah Montana Games' (no joke. my guess is that it's this person's job to do online searches of people using the name 'Hannah Montana') -

Well, if I were you I'd try to encourage your children to develop a more critical mind by telling them that not everything they see on the telly is necessarily right or truthful. You should also help them develop a sense of good as opposed to the inherent existence of evil too and help them become capable of telling the difference between them. Remember that eventually when they grow up to be teenagers they'll be exposed to lots of dangers and temptations so they should develop this sense from an early age.

I didn't mean to go all 'holier then thou' on anyone. I was writing in haste because my children were running around and distracting me. I re-read what I wrote though, and I don't disagree with anything I wrote. I just want to explain myself better.

I don't take offense to anything this person is pointing out. In fact, I agree. I was a very sheltered child. Now, as an adult and parent, I understand why my parents were so protective (to a degree). It's all out of love and the need to protect our children's innocence. But, as much as my intentions are good, they can also be harmful. If my children are not armed with truth, they will not last long in the real world.

The truth I most like to point out is that people are hurting because they don't realize that Jesus loves them and through their hurt they can hurt others and they can hurt themselves. (the easiest way to explain 'the evil of the world' to a 4 yr. old)

Most recently I've had to explain this to Olivia concerning my brother and the fact that he is sitting in jail right now serving time for theft to support a drug habit. She doesn't know the entire situation because she is not even 5 and doesn't need to know the darkness of drug addiction yet nor would she even understand it. But she knew he's in jail because he did something bad. And instead of letting her imagination run wild with possibilities I simply explained that my brother wasn't very happy and started taking people's things for money to find happiness (aka drugs) and he hasn't found real happiness yet but he's sitting in jail right now to think about what he did wrong like a long time out. And we just need to pray that he realizes that Jesus is with him and that He still loves him and that he will find happiness in Jesus so that he won't ever have to go to jail again and sit in time out. Instead of avoiding the whole situation, with my brother, by simply telling her that he's just away right now, I have introduced matters of the heart. I explained that nothing and no one will make us truly happy only God. I'm not being vague or sugar coating anything with that simple and very powerful truth.

We got onto the subject of my brother because of the bible story of cain and abel. I told her the story and explained how Cain had to wonder around without anything the rest of his life as punishment for killing his brother and nowadays we use jail as a time out like that so people can think about what they did wrong. And how sometimes people get out and do more bad things and have to go back in until they learn their lesson and how sometimes they never get out because they were really bad but no matter how bad they are God loves them. People do bad things because their hearts are hurting but we are free and have happy hearts because we know that Jesus loves us and if only people could realize that, then they too can live with happy hearts.

I love re-reading the bible and sharing bible stories with my kids. It really makes you think!