Training UP!

Most Easters I take time to reflect and spend time in God's wonderment leading up to Easter Sunday. But this Easter It just seems as if it just crept in with out me getting a chance to even ponder what a glorious thing that Christ did for me. Since Lilly was born it seems as if my days go by to fast keeping track of the clock and either waiting for the next nap time or when she should be waking up. She is a a huge blessing in my life, but this Easter, instead of focusing on my sinfulness and how the Lord took the pain and Punishment I should have received I have been thinking more about training my daughter up. It is tough work. Discipline has been such a challenge for me. More then I thought it would have been. Lilly is generally a very good little girl. But She still requires to be trained in the way she should go. But I got into a discipline debate with some mommies who believe that Spanking shouldn't start until a child is 3, which is a whole other story.  but the debate got me to really think about How the Lord still disciplines and train us in the way we should go even as adults. The Learning Processes never stops. God sometimes uses "spankings" with us to learn that what we are doing is disobedient  but sometimes he uses it to save us. I don't spank Lilly when she try's to grab my cup of tea because what she is doing in BAD, but because if she pulls in top of her she will get burned and be in a lot pain. I spank her because I don't want her to get hurt. I am give a moment of barely any pain in order to save her from what could be days of pain or more. God does the same things to us as Christians.  God uses situations in our lives that are very painful but if we kept going in that path we could have been hurt even more. I am not saying that all painful things in our lives is God disciplining us, but he is training us. For What? I don't know. and I don't know if we will always be 100% certain of Why things happen the way they do. Sometimes its just so that we can learn to trust and lean on him more. I know that I don't always take things to HIM straight away, I try to fix things myself which usually makes things worse. But I know that those times when I bad situation happens and I sit and pray and give it over to God things start to become more clear on what the right thing is to do. And things generally start to work out better then I had planned or imagined

As I learn and fumble on how to train my daughter up in the ways she should go, I am humbled by how hard it is. but the Lord does it for each and everyone of his children, He even took the harshest punishment upon himself so that we could live.

 I pray that  the things that Gary and I have failed at as parents The Lord will take over and Show Lilly grace and bring her in to his Covenantal Family and train her up to be a Woman of Proverbs 31.