Change of Heart

"God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything." ~ 1 John 3:20

     My husband started a major renovation project almost five years ago. He, along with the help of his father, his good friend, and at times other family and friends, has redone our 1850 farmhouse and he has done such a wonderful job. I feel so at home here, surrounded by a home that he put together with lots of hard work, frugality, and prayers. These last five years have been filled with so much change, and this house has had much to do with that change.
     When we started this renovation, our first son was a newborn. It was easy for my husband to go work at "the old house," as we called it. Then the days rolled by and our daughter was born. By then our son was 2, and he missed his dad so much when he was gone working at the old house. But we weren't thrilled with the idea of bringing our children along when my husband was working on the renovation. That would be hard, wouldn't it, with little ones in tow? God, in His infinite wisdom, and with a series of events, began changing our hearts so that we would desire to have our children with us at all times.
     I think the first thing He threw in our path was Deuteronomy 6:6&7, which says, "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. " After reading that verse, my husband and I realized that God truly was meaning that we were to teach our children about God and His ways at all times. There wasn't a time when we weren't supposed to be doing that, according to this verse! This became food for thought.
     Then the Lord began showing us that His will for us is to homeschool (which could more appropriately be called "home discipleship"). That truly meant spending alot of time with our children. As the Lord put this on our hearts, He began changing our hearts. We went from wanting uninterrupted time to work on "the old house" to truly desiring that our children be there with us, no matter what their age. God is so good, and he replaced our impatience with our little ones as we worked with a desire to show them what we were doing and to teach them about what we were doing, and when appropriate, to let them work alongside us. I can tell my four year old son that he helped prime the stair spindles, that he helped hang drywall as he learned about using a drill, and that he helped put in the wooden floor in the kitchen. All these teaching opportunities routinely point us back to God and to some lesson He has placed in His word. One major theme that came through during the renovation of our home was that we were to keep our focus on God, and not on our renovation, which was all-consuming at times. Psalm 127:1 states that "unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." How true, how true! We were truly laboring in vain when we took our eyes off the Lord as we renovated. It was not the most important thing in our lives-God was.
     God brought us to the other side of our renovation with changed hearts. So now we are at a different point in our lives where we want our children with us when it is easy to do so, and when it is hard to have them with us. And I can say that we really enjoy it. We're not perfect-we still lose our patience with them and forget that a "gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1). We seek forgiveness when we need it, and we praise the Lord that He continues to work on us each and every day. We see each moment as an opportunity to "bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4)
     Thank you, Lord, for knowing us better than ourselves, and for helping us see what is truly important in life. Thank you for bringing us to this place where we truly love being with our children and teaching them about you. Amen.