Make love the final move

So when I started blogging again I renamed the blog "Love Has the Final Move".  I love this song, it gives me hope that some day love will have the final move, someday the pain of this world will end. Tonight however, I heard the song again and combined with the day I had and the place I'm at in my book that I'm reading (Intentional Parenting) I had another thought.  Some time we need to make love our final move.  

"What kind of story are you living in front of your children?"

This question has been following me around for the last few days. Its one of the thought provoking/ discussion/journaling questions in the first chapter of Intentional Parenting.  I know the answer.  That's not why its following me around, nagging at me, popping up when I don't want to be reminded of it.  Its because it seems to come up most often when I'm not living the story I want to live in front of the girls.  

To me the most important thing to teach our children is love.  I believe that love is the very core of who God is, and if we don't teach our children that we miss something huge.  But so many times I FAIL at living a story of love in front of our girls.

Let's be honest parents, how easy is it to lose our tempers with our children? I mean really, who likes to mop up pee off the bathroom floor everyday (or twice a day or sometimes even three times...) or wake up at 3 am to a screaming baby? But its what we do in those moments that teaches our children the most.  Ezekiel 20: 21-22 says " I seriously considered dumping my anger out on them, right there in the desert.  But I thought better of it and acted out of who I was a not by what I felt. (MSG) 

Now, please excuse my oversimplification and basic knowledge of the Israelites and their relationship with God but here it goes... If anyone "deserved" for God's anger to be dumped out on them, it was the Israelites.  They were God's chosen people.  He saved them, protected them, blessed them and STILL they turned from Him.  And yet God chose NOT to dump His anger on them, because it was not who He is.  He goes on to say that he chose not  to dump out His anger so that His name not be 

So many times we feel justified in our anger.  Sometimes people hurt us, are cruel and unfair or simply frustrating.  These things will happen, its not a matter of if, but when, and the really question is how will you respond? Will you respond out of how you feel or who you are?  I challenge you to make love your choice. When you're angry or frustrated or stressed, choose to live out a story of love.  Make love your final move.