Asher got Legos for his birthday, and although he likes building with them, Rilyn, my almost 8 year old, LOVES playing with them! One of the weeks James was gone in April I had a real “parenting night”-(those times when a teachable lesson presents itself)- and I had Legos to thank for it.
Rilyn had used Asher’s new Legos and spent several days building a city. She carefully followed the direction booklet and it was all set up…on the living room floor. You can see where this is going I’m sure…
We are skyping with James, and Asher wanders away. After we get off the call, I see Asher, who has successfully destroyed every last piece of Rilyn’s Lego city. He’s not doing it maliciously, he’s a boy, and destroying is fun, and they are HIS Legos after all.
Rilyn sees the damage.
And what happens next was crazy out of character for Rilyn, but she threw the biggest temper tantrum I have ever seen! She was thrashing about on the floor, screaming at the top of her lungs, crying hysterically…Ella starts crying quietly because she was scared at what her big sister was doing! Asher looked dumbfounded and kept staring at her. I took Ella and Asher to their rooms and told them “let’s pray for Rilyn.”
We leave her alone in the living room for a good 5 minutes. Ella looks at me in her room and says, “I think Rilyn loves Legos more than Jesus.” (Thank you to my 6 year old for declaring to me what I needed to go address with Rilyn.)
When I hear Rilyn calming down, I leave Ella to watch Asher, and I walk to Rilyn. We talk about what happened and her behavior. “I worked SO HARD!!!” “He ruined everything!” “I’ll never be able to build it again, it will take too long!!”
I calmly respond with “Did you know God always knew that Asher would destroy your city today? Did you know He has a perfect plan for why this happened? Do you think He is trying to get your attention to something, maybe something that is going on inside your heart? When you act so outrageously because of Legos, that tells me your heart’s affections are not for Jesus. Based on your actions earlier, your heart’s affections seem to be for self worth in what you can do (build a cool Lego city), in how hard you work, and in what you deserve or don’t deserve (her city being destroyed). Jesus wants you to find your self worth in Him alone, not how good you are at building Legos. Jesus wants you to know that He gives you the strength to work hard, it’s not in your own strength. He gave you the talent to build like that. And as for what you deserve… Jesus didn’t deserve to die on the cross-He was without sin! So anything given to us is His grace, because we are full of sin, and deserve death, but Jesus died for us! You don’t deserve to have your Lego city standing for all to see for all time. It was grace that you even got to build something so cool, and show it to us for a little while.“
We prayed together, and Rilyn repented, and asked Jesus for forgiveness. It really was a beautiful moment of redemption.
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| Rilyn age 21/2, building cities even then… |
the paquettes 