I like to joke that I run my house like a boot camp. It’s my answer to why my children sleep well and basically don’t walk all over me. Baby sleeps because I’m in his face at 5am, 8a, 11:30a, 2:30p, 5:30p, and 9p without fail, time to wake up! Littlefoot doesn’t argue for long about anything because it’s never, in 28 months, ever worked to get him his way.

But there is one way that my house is not like a boot camp: I listen. I consider it my job to listen to my children. My ability to guess their needs is pretty good by now, but their wants? I need them to tell me. And I want them to learn to come to me with all their little (and big) wants because I want them one day to go to God with those wants. I want them to experience the delight of a parent happy to give.

I don’t know any boot camps where the fierceness of the leader is borne of love. Yes, I want my children to “succeed” (whatever that means, I’m still learning), but I know that success only comes through total dependence on God. I need them to know that the limit-giving Authority is the very same One who delights to give them their hearts’ desires.

I don’t know if I’m doing everything right, or even a fair bit right, but I do know that my goal in all this is to plant seeds in my little ones hearts and till the soil of those hearts so that when Christ comes after them they are ready to say, “I’ve heard of You but now I see You, and I will worship You for the rest of my days.”