I started my day yesterday reading another post in a series my friend, Sarah Knepper, had posted about walking her children through trauma. Each post I read nudges me to write, but I’ve never taken the time to share what God is doing in my life. The posts remind me of my trauma and reminds me of how I parent my son because of that trauma…in complete honesty.

Today’s post was all too real though to NOT sit down and write…http://redemptiondiary.com/2014/11/26/help-child-thrive-trauma-honesty/

I am reminded today of a day this past July when I heard my son processing out loud in the other room. I overheard him talking to himself , telling himself that having sex outside of marriage is a sin. After his 5 min conversation with himself about this he came barreling down the hallway into my room and exclaimed “MOM! Did you know that when you had me you weren’t married and that’s a sin?”

I responded, “YUP!”

I asked him where he’d learned this as we’d never talked about it that I could recall and he responded “The Bible,” to which I was happy to not only hear he had read it, but also that he was applying God’s Word in his life.

He asked how it happened and I explained without holding back. I was raised in the church and knew what God’s Word said about it, but I didn’t plan my life accordingly and got into situations where the biology of my body took over the knowledge in my mind because I didn’t prepare a plan ahead of time. With him heading into high school I explained it in terms of him making choices not to put himself in places where he’d be alone with girls and make plans accordingly so that would not happen because as soon as we place ourselves alone with another we are already placing ourselves in danger of biology taking over our knowledge. It’s just not wise.

He took this conversation further though and asked me if I was ashamed of my sin. I explained I HAD been, but because God sent His Son to die on the cross to forgive us our sins I didn’t need to remain ashamed because I am set free.

He had gotten mad about something earlier that day and called me a bunch of names right before I was leaving the house for an appointment. When I returned I explained to him that I cried the whole way over to my appointment because he’d hurt my feelings. He’d apologized and I’d accepted the apology so I interjected that here and reminded him how bad he felt earlier about having made me cry and asked if he still felt bad about it. When he responded “No” I explained that’s the freedom of forgiveness.

He finished up this quick, maybe 15 min, conversation by explaining “well I wasn’t sure if you knew it was a sin or not and I didn’t want you getting into the same predicament”

As he left my room I looked around wondering what had just happened and questioning that he is only 14. God has used him repeatedly in ways like this from the beginning to remind me of His grace & love & forgiveness & joy. I never imagined myself ever being a mother and today I actually asked a friend if I could quit, but she told me I am stuck with him. It’s sometimes funny to look back and see God’s hand on things all along. He’s the joy of my life.