Fathers Day

Today is Simon's ninth Fathers Day. He was on music for the first time at church today, so I had to wake the kids up to give him his presents.  The older three chose their presents at the school Fathers Day Stall, so the gifts were mostly edible.  Ezzie made a keyring and a card at playgroup on Wednesday.

I think the best present was when Ezra came in later on and said he wanted to belong to God's Family. Simon sat down and had a simple talk with him and prayed with him, then quickly left for music practice at church.  A few minutes later Ben was being somewhat nasty to Ezzie, so I had to talk to him and he also said he wanted to pray like Ezra had.

This afternoon Abby came in to Simon and started asking questions about how you talk to people about God.  She also wanted to sit down and read some Bible passages with her Dad.  This was rudely interrupted by the entrance of Ben screaming whilst Tim tried to strangle him.  It turns out Ben had borrowed a makeshift slingshot from our neighbours and had hit Tim in the forehead with a rock.  This obviously was not appreciated, and Tim retaliated by chasing him and attempting to strangle him.  Such loving brothers as they are.

It all turned out for the best because soft-hearted Ben was so distressed at having hit Tim (like David hit Goliath) that he was afraid Tim was going to die and he began to cry about how he deserved to go to hell because he couldn't be good.  Tim didn't have a mark on him, however Ben had some unpleasant scratches on his neck, and eventually Tim also was sorry for what he'd done.  Simon was able to talk to the three older children about it whilst I rushed Ezra off to have a bath and contemplated how to explain the strangle marks on Ben's neck to the teachers at school tomorrow.

So, all in all, it's been an interesting day for the children's spiritual growth.  Not what I expected when I woke up this morning.  Sometimes one or the other of them will ask a difficult question, but we don't normally have all of them asking about spiritual issues in the same day.  I hope God provides extra wisdom for parents of growing children.

Now I guess I should do the good wifely thing, and cook Simon tea for Father's Day.  I suppose I should let him have a break from cooking sometimes...  :-)