i yell at my kids.

I sometimes yell at my kids. Sometimes. Not all the time just when I have said the same thing 32 times and for some reason what I said 32 times hasn't been heard or apparently understood... then i try yelling. which in most cases work. yelling gets the point across. all the "how to be an awesome parent" methods tell you not to yell but sometimes... momma just needs to be heard. or do i?

 i dont want to yell. i'm not comfortable yelling but its just a reaction when your running on 3 hours of sleep each night, dinner is burning, the baby is screaming and your 3 and 2 year old are fighting over the broom. you just have to yell. or someone is going to get knocked on the side of the head with a broom handle. And i know from experience that fighting over a broom doesn't end well... just ask my sister.

I have gotten pretty good at holding in my yelling when around other people bc there have been plenty of times when other moms have commented on how calm i am with my kids.  But, when people say those things to me, i'm shocked at first and then i secretly want to give myself a pat on the back for hiding my sin so well. bc yes, yelling at our kids in anger is a sin. yelling at our kids is not how we speak life into them. in fact, we can tell them they are being disobedient without yelling at them. we can correct their behavior without yelling at them. we can "train them they way they should go" without yelling at them. can't we?

  i recently read an interview that Michelle Duggar (the mom who has like a million kids) did and she was asked how she stays so calm when are kids are misbehaving. She said, "if my kids can't learn to hear my voice, they will never be able to hear God's voice." Her response really struck me and though it first made me feel guilty, after pondering about it, it was very encouraging. Michelle Duggar for the win. I may not be a fan of long blue jean skirts, tator tot casseroles or side hugs, but i certainly think that woman is filled with more wisdom than I can only hope for!

What Michelle Duggar said has so much truth to it and not just how we speak to our children but even how we speak to our husbands or even ourselves really. I find my self often asking myself "am i speaking life or death into [so & so]" how easy it is to distinguish the two when you simply just ask. Every word we speak has the power to uplift or the power to damage, how incredible is it that we get to choose what were going to do with that. it makes me appreciate my husband even more for being a man of few words. He knows the damage words can bring, he knows and realizes the importance of them and uses that knowledge wisely & carefully.  

So here i am trying not to yell, not to be that one crazy mom and to just see my children the way god sees them. a blessing. so simple sounding isn't is? our children are a blessing.  regardless of how many times you have to tell them to stop throwing their spinach leaves on the floor while spitting their milk on one another. ;) yes. a blessing indeed.