Most kids usually don't enjoy going down for a nap, especially when you are two and there are new birthday toys in the house to play with...And you think your baby brother gets to stay up and hang with mom! We are talking about Weston. hint hint :) Today was especially hard and shortly after putting him down he began to throw a tantrum screaming that brother needed to go to bed too. The tantrum at nap time has become more and more frequent causing me to scratch my head at the best method to help him through this...Gratefully the Bible gives us many tools as a parent to deal with sin issues, as tantrums are, and I chose the method of giving grace today. In Proverbs it says that a gentle answer turns away wrath and today it was true.
I waited for about 5 minutes and the screaming continued to escalate. I entered the room and Weston clearly new he was in trouble. We have defined for him that it is ok for him to be sad but it is not ok to be screaming in sheer anger and he knows the difference... shown by his guilty conscience :)
I asked him if he would like me to sing him a song. Between sobs he said yes and laid down. I stroked his hair and sang three stanzas of "Amazing Grace" while also praying the words of the song for him. He just laid there and closed his eyes and went right to sleep with not another peep. Amazing. Within three minutes he went from a screaming madman to a sweetly sleeping baby :)
I pray that someday the words of the song would soothe his soul drawing him closer to Christ as the sweet melody soothed his emotions today, giving him a picture of the grace that we have received as Christians. When we were lost in our own ways, throwing our own sort of tantrums, God came down and sang to us a sweet melody of Grace by dying on the cross and rising again for us when we really deserved punishment. But He took our punishment for us- Amazing Grace!
" Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind but now I see."
