God's nudging...

I was laying in bed a few nights ago praying. It was about 2am and like normal for me recently I just couldn't sleep. So I started talking to God and kinda just chit-chatting I guess you could say. All of the sudden I felt totally convicted about how much time I spend worrying about keeping my house perfect and the kids from making messes and not letting them just have fun! That doesn't mean I should just let my house become a disaster because I believe we should take care of what God has given us, but so much of my MIND is taken up by thinking about the next chore I have. Instead of using this precious time to play with and develop their character. It was a particularly rough week, Colin has entered the 2 year stage of life that includes being very defiant and very disobedient and unfortunately his sister is kinda feeding off of that. I spent most of the week disciplining them and felt very run down and almost defeated. My house was a disaster, dinner had been difficult to get to the table, and I was a stressed out mess physically and emotionally which made my relationship with Bryan tense. During that prayer time I realized that I was thinking about MYSELF and what was convenient or inconvenient to ME instead of "How can I show them what it means to be like Jesus?" That just slapped me in the face! The time I have with them is so short in the grand scheme of their life and I need to make EVERY second count! I want to help their little hearts turn towards their Maker and to realize that it isn't only good to obey mommy, but to obey JESUS as well. So my prayer time for THEIR attitudes ultimately turned into God showing me MY attitude problem, don't ya love how He does that?! :-)