Yesterday I was in the backyard pulling weeds out of the grass while the children were enjoying popsicles!!!! Emma Claire walked up to me and this conversation followed:
EC: "Mommy, what are you doing?"
ME: "Sweetie, I'm pulling the weeds up out of the grass."
EC: "Why are you doing that? They are so pretty!!!!"
ME: "Yes they may look pretty on the outside and have all kinds of pretty flowers on them, but underneath the ground they are stealing all the water from the grass and making it so the grass can't grow!"
EC: "Oh!?"
ME: "It's kind of like sin, sometimes it looks pretty on the outside, but when it gets in your body it's really really bad and can make you sick and feel far from God." (not exactly sound theology, but it got my point across)
EC: "BAD weeds, BAD weeds - I'm going to help you pull them all out so the grass can grow!" "What's all that at the bottom of the weed?"
ME: "Those are the roots, they grow down in the ground and drink all the good water, you must pull all the roots out or they will just continue to grow and grow and grow, even though you cut the flower away"
A little later, I was in my bedroom and I heard Will call for the children and I looked out, Emma Claire had a HUGE handful of flowering weeds in her hands, roots and all. She excitedly exclaimed to her daddy, "Look at all the flowers I found!!!" Will replied, "Emma Claire, those are weeds, not flowers" And ya'll, she threw them down as quickly as she could and said "Bad Weeds" in a mean mean voice.
I hope and pray she's like that with sin in her life, she may not always recognize it as sin at first, but hopefully when she does, she will throw it out of her life without thinking twice.
