Breaking ground

I feel like I took all the precautions before Christmas...organizing and purging all the toys. A little over a month later I am doing the same thing.  This year we asked Santa to  bring 3 gifts since that is what Jesus got and mommy & daddy do the want, wear, need read, gifts. Of course we are totally blessed and they kids get spoiled by many other family & friends. Multiply this by 3 kids and lets just say our house looks like toys exploded. And honestly we don't even have that much.....

What am I saying we have plenty. A toy vanity, a toy kitchen, a car ramp, trains, barbie house, doll house, dolls and high chairs and cribs, American girl items and a few other odds and end like cars and dinos. We have outside toys, bikes, & a playset. Why do we feel so overwhelmed still?

Perhaps with all that my kids would rather curl up with a book and snuggle but then 5 minutes later scream until I let them play with their kindles. Or every since Christmas every time we geo to the store my kids are using the "w" word.  When did my kids begin to feel so entitled?

Perhaps its the fact my 5 year old remembers 1, yes,1 toy she received for Christmas. Perhaps it is that I am constantly stepping on toxic filled plastic pieces, that go straight to the trash. How will I ever teach responsibility?

I spend my days building a glorious sandcastle just for someone to come along and stomp all over it. Well maybe not, but that is how I feel. I would much rather be enjoying playing with my kids and watching them play together than them fighting  over who gets to wreck my castle. And then me getting angry until every last gain of sand is put back in it's place.

I learned something this week. I have desires. If i put those desires on other people they turn into expectations. Those expectations turn your relationship into a debt to debtor relationship and when that happens...the acts of doing things out of love diminish.

I have been praying about love a lot lately.

Eph 4:2 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

How can I focus my energy on my children in a gentle, patient, and loving, Christ-like way if my eyes are off the prize. They are focused on not stepping on those legos, or what isn't in it's proper place. It has turned into such an expectation that it is tearing me and my children down.

This isn't working. This year. This year it has to change. We are taking ground.

Colossians 3:2 ESV Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Titus 2:11-12 ESV For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.