A Guilty Conscience

There are times as a parent that I am very thankful the Lord gives me a glimpse into my children's hearts. Today we had one of those times...

This morning we went to Wal-Mart to go shopping. I told the children that as a reward for obeying well and obeying the first time that I would buy them a candy bar. Tirzah, had some of her own money so she wanted to know if I would buy her something and then let her buy herself something also. I said yes, but that she could only eat one of them today. So Tirzah bought herself a Laffy Taffy and I bought her skittles. She chose to eat the Skittles in the car and save the Laffy Taffy until Tomorrow.

Later in the afternoon, Tirzah comes in holding the Laffy Taffy in her hand saying in a distressed voice "Mommy, someone took a bite out of my Laffy Taffy." I saw the missing part and informed her that it wasn't a big deal and I would just put it on the counter for safe keeping. She was fine with that and went off to play. I didn't want to have to deal with lying boys, so I didn't even ask who did it.

Then as we were praying during family worship time it was Tirzah's turn and she turns to me with tears in her eyes and asks "Mommy if I as God to forgive me for something, will I get in trouble from you?" Desiring my child to ask for forgiveness, I assured her that she would not get in trouble. She then prayed saying "Lord, please forgive me for lying about who took a bite out of the Laffy Taffy when I was the one who did it."

This was very impressive to me. My daughter can be very deceptive which we are not blind to, but to see how the Lord convicted her of her sin and brought her to repentance was wonderful. There was no reason she needed to tell me of her deception because I didn't even suspect anything, yet the Lord brought conviction in her life so that she wanted to confess her sin. What a great God we serve. Tirzah has made a profession of faith, but we are still trying to determine if her profession is indeed a possession of faith. This little glimpse into her conscience takes us one step closer in believing that her profession is for real.

One of the reasons I think she prayed and asked forgiveness is that when we have our children pray at night, we tell them that they need to ask God to forgive them for their sins and we encourage them to be specific. Even Azariah tonight stopped and thought about what he needed to ask God to forgive him for. What encouragement we received tonight. Thank You Lord!