Somebody's Watching You

In home schooling our children, our 8 year old had to do a book report on a favorite book she had read in the past year. "Follow My Leader" is a story of a boy who was blinded by the antics of another who threw a firecracker in his face. It talks of the young man's issues with learning how to use a seeing-eye dog named Leader and learning how to forgive someone else's action.

I gave Gracie a day to work on her report before she was to present it to her home school "school", which she attends twice a week. When it was completed, I asked her to practice it in front of me. Much to my surprise, here's what she wrote for her book report:

"I will read this book again because it shows how I should live my life. I would like to become a wonderful woman like my mother who has people talk mean about her over the Internet with their letters and emails. Instead of talking to them meanly, she still stays gentle words back even though it probably hurts her feelings, I'm sure."

Luke 6:45 says, "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."

Just when you think those around you, even your children, aren't listening to your words, to your actions or your attitude, they are. We wonder why adults today act the way they do and say the things they say. They learned it from someone in their home! When I receive a hurtful email or comment from a viewer, I often reflect on what would've possibly happened in their younger years that made them feel the need to criticize (always "constructive criticism")?

You teach your children what you know; you reproduce who you are.