done

My child has a split personality.  Her student personality and her daughter personality.  They are two completely different beings.

The school personality flips out, yells, rants and raves, stomps around.  I bet you're getting the picture.

The daughter personality snuggles up, wants to paint nails and then make cookies and just can't get enough time together with me.

The differences are like night and day.

Recently I've realized how much I struggle with the two.  Not so much in the fact that they both exist.  My struggle comes in how fast one personality can flip to the other.  In how they are so completely separate.   In how one personality has no bearing on the other.

There are days when I have had student personality yelling and me and less that 5 minutes later daughter personality asking me if I want to cuddle up on the couch and watch Little House on the Prairie with her.  I think, "Don't you get it?  You have to PAY for the way you have been misbehaving.  I don't want to see you or be around you.  I am still trying to bandage up the wounds you just inflicted upon me.  You can't just pretend like the last 2 hours of hell didn't happen."  But that isn't how she works.  When student personality is done, she is gone and the new daughter appears. Done.

There is part of me that thinks that the daughter personality should pay for the sins of the student personality.  I think, if the student personality is going to give me a run for her money and see how far she can push me before I snap and kill her, the daughter personality should know that she needs to clean her room, talk to me real sweet, kiss my feet and generally steer clear of me for at least a couple of hours to make it up to me for all of the ugliness previously displayed before she even considers approaching me again.   I guess in my mind, that would show me that she GOT IT.  That she messed up and she was sorry.  I know, I maybe need counseling.

This had been bothering me for weeks.  Every time she would flip, I would get mad.  Here is sweet daughter personality trying to love on me and I'm steaming mad that she is being so sweet.  I was really struggling with the concept of her having to PAY for her bad behavior.

Granted, we do have consequences for bad behavior.  There has been lots of puzzle setting going on around here because after a warning you loose your electronics for the day.  And that is only consequence #2, the list goes on. Consequences were fine and good, but I wanted to know that she KNEW she had done me wrong.  I wanted her to cry and tell me how horrible she was and how wonderful a mother I was and how she would never be so mean again, and on and on.  Wake up from the dream, right?

However, the Lord is good and helped me put this in a spiritual perspective.  I guess the student personality could be like when I walk in the flesh and the daughter personality could be like when I walk in the Spirit.   I know. This is getting deep.  Hang on.

It really made me question whether or not I believe and act like I have to make it up to God when I mess up. Or can I confess, be done with it and move on.  Not move on like it never happened, but move on as in not sit in a pile of guilt and shame for days or weeks or years. Not sit and grovel at God's feet for something that is already done and paid for.  Forgiven.  As far as East from West.  Can I be DONE, like my daughter is DONE?  Hmmm.....

So, no, I don't believe that I have to walk around on egg shells before my loving and gracious God before He would restore our relationship.  So maybe I shouldn't do that with my daughter.  Just like with my daughter, there are often times consequences that follow my foolish behavior, but it isn't anything that breaks the unity in our relationship.  Embrace the grace offered, learn the lesson and be DONE!

So then I started praying that the Lord would confirm this through His Word to me.

Enter me starting to memorize Romans 8 (thank you Ann for inspiring me even though I haven't gotten very far).

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Wait a minute,  NO condemnation, or just no condemnation when we are behaving? NO condemnation as in God doesn't hang things over my head and make me pay for my stupidity or selfishness?

because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Free?  Bring It!  Let's be DONE!