Sardine Lessons

On the evening of Oct. 20, 2008, the 5 month anniversary of Andrew and Kathlena officially becoming part of our family we decided to play a game called Sardines. This fun game for all ages we learned from some friends of ours at church. We are finding out it is a favorite of many kids and adults we know.
So, we began to play and Mommy was to hide first. Oh! yes, I suppose I should explain the game first. Here is how it goes... It is sort of a reverse hide and seek. You turn all of the lights in the house out (best to play at night also) playing in the dark makes obvious hiding places not so. Then one person hides while everyone else counts to 60 then you go looking for the hidden person. The twist is when you find them you quietly "disappear" hiding with them until the last person is left to find everyone hiding.
Okay, so back to our night of sardines. Andrew and Kathlena being a little frightened of a dark house I decided to give them small glow sticks to carry while they searched so they could "see" better and feel more secure about walking through a dark house. Mommy hid first and was met with lots of giggles and fun when found by the boys first. After playing for a while J.Michael hid and Andrew began following Emily some as well as searching on his own. Kathlena and I found J.Michael first and hid with him (Kathlena is a great hider...so quiet, a few times I thought she had fallen asleep, but no, just quiet). A long time passes and Emily stumbles upon us leaving only Andrew to find us. We could see him come near by the light of his glow stick, but not close enough to find us. We began to hear him call for Emily which quickly revealed he knew she had now found us too and that he was alone. His voice betraying his nervous emotions made my heart leap to scoop him up, but my spirit said wait. A few minutes later he comes in and he finds us. "I found you!" He was excited and grabs hold of me tightly saying "Mommy, I thought I had lost you, Andrew was crying for you(inside he did not do this aloud) and so sad as you were lost to me. I never want you to be lost to me because I love you so much."
It broke my heart but then I was quickly reminded that this was a safe way for him to deal with fear and experience being lost in the safety of our own home. We talked about how brave he was and what to do if you get lost somewhere. We also discussed staying close to Mommy in busy places so you do not get lost...only now with a better understanding of being lost. I realize I could have consoled him only and stopped the game giving into his fears and training him to avoid such situations in life, but instead chose to take the opportunity to speak truth into his heart about being brave, courageous and pressing on when he meets difficult circumstances. I could also have allowed his past to color my response, but instead as I am growing in my biblical understanding of parenting, I am purposely focusing on training the character of the man he will one day become by speaking the truth of Christ's faithfulness and power to overcome (Ephesians 6:10-11, 16) life's struggles. Viewing these struggles as stepping stones towards a deeper understanding of our need to rely on the Lord not man's wisdom, but the authority of the Word of God for all things pertaining to our life on this earth. Andrew's name means "Mighty Man" and each day as I pray for our children I pray that the Lord would raise up my sons to be mighty men for the Lord's kingdom. I didn't set out to train on this issue as we played our game of Sardines, but I was admonished by the Lord that in all we do we are training; teachable moments are constantly at our feet for the taking. A simple child's game, Sardines, who would have thought it could have had such a big lesson?