Most Fridays, I join Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. One word prompt. Five minutes. No editing. Lots of women. All of us writing on that same word.
Today the word prompt is … Yes.
They would come to me with a question …
- “Mom, can I stay up until 10?”
- “Can I have Mary sleep over? And maybe Jane too?”
- “Can I skip school tomorrow?”
- “Can I watch TV now?”
- “Can I have mac-n-cheese again for dinner tonight?”
It seemed simple enough to answer as it had to be either a “Yes” or a “No”.
The problem was I truly knew in my heart, the answer would not be well received and a battle would be had.
At those times, due to being tired, the easier response was, “Maybe” or “We’ll see”. They would quickly respond, “Thank you!” and go off happily, almost with a skip in their step, which always left me with a greater problem – what I would do later when the “No” finally did come.
You see, my children tended to interpret the non-committal responses as “Yes” for this is what they desired. Not once did they ever interpret it as a delay or the “no” it was. They always heard “yes”.
Jesus had a very simple solution to my problem …
“Simply let your “Yes” be “Yes”, and your “No” be “No”; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37, NIV)
So much better to say what you mean and mean what you say.
Yes, it truly is the best way.
Today I am joining … Five Minute Friday and Faith Filled Friday and Grace & Truth and Blessing Counters and Fellowship Friday .
Great parenting advice, and broader wisdom for living like Jesus.
Praying we always respond, “Yes”, quickly.
Great post! I reallyy do MISS the FMF group – I didn’t catch this prompt last night as I was finishing other posts that needed to be published yesterday and today…BUT, now that I see the word…perhaps I’ll sneak in this morning!
My plan is to continue reading others’ posts and get right back into FMF before October; then follow the five minute writing…
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Barbara, I had been thinking myself of following the five minute writing for October. It seems like a most helpful way to get back into the writing 🙂 Hope you do.
I’m also guilty of saying “maybe” and “we’ll see” to my children. And they tend to see those answers as “yes” too.
Here via the Grace & Truth link-up.
I think it is so funny how children interpret the answer differently.
Mmm, great nugget of truth here. I’m the queen of “We’ll See”. The next time I fix my lips to say that, I know God will bring this post back to my remembrance. Thanks for sharing. Visiting from Grace & Truth Linkup.
May we surrender our crowns 🙂
I love that scripture, let your yes be yes and your no be no! Sure makes life and child-rearing easier! FMF neighbor #54
Susan, it truly does make life easier as it puts everyone on the same page.
I enjoyed reading your post this morning. – Sarah (stopping by from FMF)
Wow! Say what you mean, mean what you say. I often did that with My three Sons as well…kind of putting it off until later but it didn’t help them any nor did it help me. Great wisdom here today. ♥
So true! I couldn’t ever tell my kids, “maybe” because they always, always thought it meant yes. It’s much better to deal with the question right then and there than to put it off. The same is true for us…always better to say yes to God! 🙂
“Yes” is the better answer all around 🙂