On being cool, which I am, apparantly.

Today is testimony day at church, first sunday of the month members have the chance to stand up in the meeting and share how they feel about the church and it's teachings. Sometimes lovely, sometimes people forget what it's all about and waffle on about their life story, oh dear.
Today Elijah didn't sit with grandma, a chance, he thought to behave like a wild thing. I spent half the meeting trying to listen and the other half dragging him out from under chairs and trying to help him understand that a whispering voice is a good thing in church meetings.
Just at the end of the meeting I saw one of the girls I teach getting up at the front.....children rarely take the chance to stand up and talk about how the church makes them feel and so I stopped ( gave up) trying to tame Elijah and listened.
Laura, aged 10 said
" I love my primary teacher ( that's me), she is really cool, when I am older, if I am asked to be a primary teacher I hope that I can be as cool as she is, Amen"
Oh heart all fluffy and weepy in a happy way.

I take this teaching seriously and try very hard to listen to the promptings I get on what to say and how to teach, this week I had the toughest time fitting in with the lesson manual, it was like reading Japanese, no matter what I tried nothing would come to me and I was getting more and more frustrated, until giving myself a break I read an old lesson by someone called Jeffrey R Holland.
The lesson was based on a talk about families and how we should be really clear with our children about what we believe and what is important to us, not to take for granted or assume that they 'just know'. I know that I made that mistake with my bigger kids, I thought that they naturally 'got that my faith is important to me and that I believe the things I live because I have tried them out, prayed about them, put them to the test. My big kids have no idea what I believe in.......how could they miss that? How can they NOT know? Because I never told them.

.... might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love?
Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son? I pray that they know this.

I read this lesson and had that smack in the gob feeling, that DUH! Realisation. I also realised that while I am their teacher, it is my responsibility to do the same with these girls. Nothing can be left to chance.
I spent the lesson today just telling the girls that all I want for them to know is that they are of infinite worth, that the world at large will have them believe that what they look like, what they wear, what they own is important. It isn't important. What they ARE matters, who they become is vital. Life is so tough for kids these days, such pressure on them to 'be'.
I want to grab my big kids and make them see what I believe. I want to make them see what is important to me, show them all the things I have learned along the way that make the fripperies and nonsense of the world of such little importance. I am so grateful that I can do things differently with the little boys. Their minds are so different anyway, raising these little people, half me and half H is a world apart from raising Dan, Jordan and Sophie. I am older, I am wiser, more patient. I have H with me and as much as I will stand on a soap box and tell the world that children can be raised well by one good parent alone, I will be equally vocal about the fact that it will never beat being raised by 2 good parents, together.
Seth, Isaac and Eli seem to be different in that 'things' don't seem to interest them at all, they crave our time, stories and time on the basketball court, games and listening. They could care less about sweets and chocolate ( ???!!!!!! HOW???) they wouldn't know a PS if it smacked them in the head An Xbox? What is that? They have seen a Wii because Jordan has one.
I want that to last. I want for them to always know that 'stuff' is nice but not necessary.
I wish I could go back and do so many things differently. Much more time for my big kids, much less making things so bloody perfect. My house was a gleaming show home, everything in it's place, everything matching and perfect and beautiful. I certainly did do many fun things with my children but always after the 'important' things were done. I was weary and afraid and worried that I'd get it wrong. In my defence I was also dealing with the aftermath of the abuse and that knocked years off their childhoods.
The thing is, we can't go back. We can only go forward and change the things we need to change. I think I am headed for a big change of some kind, I feel it in my water! A new beginning and some new resolutions. To be less afraid of saying what I believe and even less afraid to let who I am show.
I see more and more that people love me. Extraordinary! Just as I am, who I am...I am accepted and loved and people actually like being with me, well for heavens sake! I only have to try and stop this feeling that I am less than likeable. I have to learn to believe that I am quite nice. How sad that this is so difficult!
It ought not to be so hard, when a little Joey boy shouts " Airs Ellun!" and with such a look of joy in his face, it must be true that 'Ellun' is worth shouting about.
When a 10 year old is willing to stand up in church in front of a big crowd just to say her teacher is cool, well it must be a bit true mustn't it?
I shall have to think up a mantra to chant every morning.....any ideas?