Getting to the Heart

For the past year I've been getting together once or twice a month with an older mom from our church to talk about all kinds of issues revolving around being a godly wife and mother. I've really enjoyed getting to know Bonnie and I respect her wisdom and advice. Over the summer we decided to read "The Heart of Anger" by Lou Priolo, and it has been one of the best books I've ever read. The focus of the book is learning to biblically diagnose anger manifestations in your children and train them to work through their problems in a godly way, rather than allowing it to simmer in their hearts and come out as sin. I highly recommend the book to any parent, but I've also found it incredibly helpful for my relationship with Mitch and really any relationship in general.

One of the main principles in the books is learning the "Gumnazo Principle", which bascially means to train your child (or yourself) to do the right thing over and over so that eventually it becomes a habit. This is based off of Heb. 5:13-14 which reads
"For everyone who partakes only of milk in not accumstomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained (gumnazo-ed) to discern good and evil."
So basically whenever your child does something sinful, your responsibility as the parent is to teach them what they should have done and help them practice it so that next time they will at least know what they should do, whether they actually do it or not is another thing!

Priolo also suggests working with your child to answer different questions such as:
-What happened to provoke me to anger?
-What did I say in my heart when I became angry?
-What does the Bible say about what I said to myself when I became angry?
-What should I have said to myself when I became angry?
-What is it that I believe I can't be happy without?
-What do I delight in the most?
-What do I love more than God and my neighbor?

He lists others as well throughout the book that I have just found so helpful for me as an individual as well as a parent. Caleb is still so young to really be able to get into much with him, but already I've asked him in simple terms some of these questions and I think it helps both of us understand more what is going on in his little heart.

There have been times in reading this book that I have felt overwhelmed at the thought of how much time every day this kind of heart training could take...but as Priolo so aptly asks,
"What else are you doing with your time that is more important than this?"