Can our children's behavior in public be a testimony?
One of the employees at our local pharmacy must think that our family is very interesting. No matter where we are in the store, she is watching us. We are under her constant "surveillance" til we exit the door.
She is also very unfriendly to us. I have seen her smiling and chatting with the other customers, but her countenance does a 180 when we get to the check out. She doesn't even speak to me, much less the children, or make eye contact while I'm paying for my things. I've always smiled and tried really hard to be friendly to her, but it didn't work.
I was beginning to dread going into the store and I even considering changing pharmacies. Then, not long ago, my doctor called in prescription for me. When the children and I went to pick it up, guess who was at the check out?
"Oh, no!" I thought. "I don't want to deal with her today!" But I breathed a prayer for help and headed her way. She saw me coming and put my prescription on the counter. As I was paying for it, she was her usual no eye contact, unfriendly self...even glaring at the children, who were standing obediently beside me. Before I turned to leave, she leaned over the counter, looked me in the eye, and said, "Tell me the truth...you threaten them before you come in here, don't you?"
So that was it! She apparently was watching us to see if the children would misbehave. Her question caught me off-guard. I'd never been asked that before. But I heard my voice saying," No, I don't threaten them. We just discipline them the way we're supposed to, and they know what's expected of them."
She responded, "Well, they certainly are well-behaved." As I left the store that day, I was hoping things would be different from then on. Wrong. She's still hovering close by the whole time we're in the pharmacy. But that's ok. She's watched us enough to know that my children are going to behave themselves, and they aren't going to ransack the place. The next time she decides to talk to me, I'll be ready to share why we train our children as we do.
And I consider that, at least to a very small degree, shining the light.
Matthew 5:16 : "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
This post is linked up @ http://raisingmightyarrows.blogspot.com
http://www.homemaker-by-choice.com
