Being a parent is hard. Sometimes there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Day after day of toiling in the dark can be discouraging. But yesterday and today, I saw a tiny light. Yesterday, we were in the car on our way to meet our new niece at the hospital. On the way there, Bryce mentioned to us that he had told our neighbor boy, Daniel about hell and that people who are bad, etc have to go there when they die. I immediately assumed that he had probably told him this because of our recent discussions about hell and that it’s not a bad word to say it, etc. So I asked, “Bryce, were you telling Daniel about hell because you wanted to be able to say the word hell without getting in trouble?”. He said no. He said that he wanted to tell him about hell because he had never been able to tell anyone about Jesus before and he really wanted Daniel to know about Heaven and hell. Well, our hearts certianly were glowing!

Today, I witnessed another very mature and considerate decision that Bryce made. Last night we had promised to take the boys bowling, but were unable to go because we decided to go to the hospital instead. We promised that we would take them the next day (saturday). Well, as it turns out, we are probably not able to find a baby sitter for the girls tonight, so I asked Bryce if he would prefer to go tonight without me, or if he would rather wait for an opportunity for me to be able to go with them. He thought long and hard about this and couldn’t make up his mind. Then he asked me if my feelings would be hurt if they went without me. I was surprised at even the question. I told him that my feelings would not be hurt, but I would be kind of sad since I would like to go with them. He thought again for a long time. Finally, he said that he wanted to wait and go when we could all go. He put my feelings ahead of his own! Wow! I was so blown away that I started to get tears in my eyes. I was so proud.

I thank God for these little blessings on the road of parenthood. Maybe I’m not going to screw up my kids after all.