First, the Lord knows me. He know that I’m trying and He knows that I’m doing my best to teach my children everything I can.

Did you notice that this verse said that Abraham will command his children and his household after him?

After him.

That means that he has to go first.

That means that I have to go first.

I have to live the way I “command” my children to live. If I don’t want Lucy to throw a fit, then I need to stay calm. If Lucy has to take a timeout when she’s falling apart, then I need to take a timeout when I’m about to lose it.

There’s a footnote that goes with “keep” in the verse too. That footnote suggests that “keeping the way of the Lord” is being loyal and trustworthy.

I need to be loyal to my children and they should always be able to trust me.

This reminds me of something that happened today actually. Lucy wouldn’t eat her breakfast. (I hope this is just a phase… she tells me she’s hungry, I ask her what she would like for breakfast, she tells me, I put it together for her, she sits down and takes a few bites and then says she’s done and wants to go play. Five minutes later she’s hungry again. The grazing drives me bonkers.) I told her that she had two choices – she could sit down and eat her breakfast, or she could go in timeout and not have anything else to eat until lunch time.

You weren’t there. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, she eventually ended up lying on the floor in timeout crying her hardest to pull the heartstrings of her visiting grandmas.

I heard one grandma say, “It’s hard but once you make a rule, you’ve got to stick with it.”

Other grandma says, “Yep. You’ve got to do what you say you’re going to do.”

I walk back into the room and say, “It’s so hard to be consistent and do what you say you’re going to do, especially when it would be so much easier to just give in and let her do whatever she wants. But if I don’t do it, she’ll walk all over me.”

Both grandmas agreed and we just sat there eating in toddler-screaming-filled-silence.

I’m teaching my daughter that she can trust me. I will do what I say I’m going to do, even if I don’t like it. As her mother, I’m loyal to her development and progression and that includes the hard stuff.

In a nutshell, I need to lead by example and be consistent. My girls need to know they can count on me, even (and especially) when things get hard.