My Children Heard About It At School

The nine year old asked first and the twelve year old already knew.

That is how it works. The younger one asks a direct question at a kitchen table and the older one has been carrying it since lunchtime and has said nothing.

Somebody had said something at school. Not cruelly, probably. Children repeat what is on in the kitchen at home, and it was on in a lot of kitchens that week.

And they have the same name on their sweatshirts, because you got them for the fun run and because they wanted them.

So it is on their backs and it is in their school and you cannot explain it to them because you cannot explain it to yourself.

You said something about how sometimes people make mistakes and it is complicated, and the nine year old accepted it and the twelve year old looked at you.

That look is why you are here.

Because a twelve year old who gets a soft answer to a hard question does not stop having the question. She puts it away, and she reads your face for the rest of the year.

There is a verse about children and it says something about ownership that will change how you sit down with them.

Children are an heritage of the LORD

The psalm makes a statement about children that is more than sentiment.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. (Psalm 127:3, King James Version)

An heritage of the LORD. That is a possession word.

They belong to Him. They were His before they were anybody's, and every arrangement in your life, every name on any sweatshirt, arrived long after that was already true.

You have children who belong to God before they belonged to anything else, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds them. Psalm 127:3 puts the ownership there rather than anywhere in your working life, and He was holding them before there was a name over any door.

Now what that does to the conversation you have to have.

This has been getting approached as damage control. Something has touched two children through their mother's work, and it needs limiting.

That is not the situation. Nothing has actually touched them. A sweatshirt has a word on it and somebody at school repeated something, and neither of those reaches an heritage of the LORD.

You have not been reached where it counts, and it is written that they are His heritage rather than a thing attached to your arrangement. The Spirit of God is the one who guards that, and Psalm 127 puts them outside the reach of a name on a garment.

Which frees you to do the only thing that is actually needed, which is to be truthful at a kitchen table.

The reason you softened it was fear of what the truth would do to them. And the truth is not going to do anything to them, because they are not standing where you are standing and they never were.

You are free to tell them plainly, and Scripture puts them in God's hands rather than in the balance of your working life. The Holy Spirit is the one who guards a child through an honest sentence better than through a soft one.

What twelve year olds actually need

Let me be exact about what happens with the soft answer, because it is the thing to change.

A nine year old takes a soft answer and goes back to eating. That is fine and it is right, and nine does not need more.

A twelve year old takes a soft answer and concludes that this is a subject on which her mother will not be straight with her. And she generalizes, because that is what twelve does.

So the cost of the soft answer is not that she stays confused about the incident. It is that she quietly downgrades what she can ask you about.

You have something to protect that is much larger than one afternoon, and the written word puts your children in God's keeping rather than in the keeping of an explanation. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a mother what is actually at stake, and it is not the incident.

And here is what she needs, and it is three plain things and none of them requires you to know why.

That something went wrong somewhere in the company whose name is on the sweatshirt. That her mother did not do it and does not know why it happened. And that she can wear the sweatshirt or not wear it and nobody in this house minds either way.

You have three sentences that are all true and all sayable, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes those three enough. It is written that children are an heritage of the LORD rather than a reputation to be managed, and Psalm 127:3 is why they do not have to explain anything.

Sit down at the table

So here is the thing to do, and it is at the kitchen table, and it is this week.

Sit down with both of them. Say the three sentences plainly, in that order, in ordinary words.

Then say: ask me anything you want.

And then let them ask, and answer with I do not know wherever that is the answer, because I do not know is a sentence a twelve year old can respect and a soft answer is not.

You are handing them the truth rather than a shield, and Psalm 127:3 has them in God's hands before yours. The Spirit of God is the one at that table, and He is not anxious about what a nine year old or a twelve year old is about to hear.

The reason both of them should be there is that the twelve year old needs to see the nine year old get a straight answer.

That does more for her than anything said directly to her, because it tells her what kind of house this is on a subject that is difficult, and she will file that and keep it.

You have been given one afternoon that will hold for years, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary kitchen conversation last that long. The written word calls them an heritage rather than a thing to be protected from information, and Psalm 127 is where the ownership is settled.

Then open in the morning and go on doing the work.