When I was born I was adopted into a Christian home with a Dad and Mum and a brother who was 2 years older.

I was a very relaxed type of baby, I slept a lot and ate a lot, I was placid. Growing up I was probably the same, I am definitely not a perfectionist by any means, but as I have gotten older I like some things done a particular way.

My older brother was very academic and very musical, and of course I wasn’t. School was a chore and although I did learn to play music I just wasn’t gifted with any special abilities regarding it. I read music and I played it, that was it.

I felt that I was always in the shadow of my brother, schooling wise, and life wise. He was tall and skinny and I was short and dumpy.  In meeting my birth mother many years later I have come to realise that my height and some of my weight issues are definitely a genetic trait.

I don’t think I ever felt that I met the mark and I felt I was always striving to please people and be better than what I was.

When we talk about the free gift of salvation that Jesus has given us I find it a hard thing to accept. Deep down I know it to be true, but the little girl in me who is always trying to be better just struggles to accept that she is good enough for any gift of that magnitude.

I am still trying to work out if I am “good” enough for that gift. I know that Jesus died for me and because of that and because I love Him and know that He is God’s son and because I have a relationship with him that I am going to heaven, but a little part of me thinks maybe not.

So when we are parenting our children, I think we need to be careful in how we raise them and how we speak to them. We need to be more verbal about how much Jesus loves them and how much He has done for them. They must be secure in His love and in our love.

Sometimes it is so easy to compare them to their siblings or other children and this is something we must be so careful about. I was told by a friend of my parents that I wasn’t as good as my brother at music because I just didn’t practice enough. Now I did practice, maybe not enough but I don’t think it would have mattered how much I practiced I would never be like him regarding music. I wasn’t given a gift of being able to play by ear, but God did bless me with many other gifts.

We must be careful how we verbalize to our children their failings and what they need to work on. Don’t make their issues a big thing in front of other people or other family members.

Don’t get me wrong, our children will still need discipline and correction, but this must be done without comparison but with love.

It is so easy to slip into “if you just did this you would be like so and so”. This just gives our children the idea they aren’t good enough.

There is nothing we can do to earn our Saviours love for us. There is no good works that we can do that gets us into Heaven. Our salvation is a big free gift wrapped up in the arms of our Lord.

Let’s not put provisos on this gift.

Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 

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