As I told you last time, I was in one of the New Jersey Hotels over the weekend.

Well, I had a choice to go to the New Jersey 6th flags which has the tallest roller coaster in the world but why do I want to experience death? No reason! So, I chose to stay in the hotel.

My daughter after the ride, she expressed her experience this way, laughingly, “Mom, I saw heaven.”

I mean why do I want to go through that while I’m doing life okay without any “near death” experience? Anyways, yes, that is where all the Bankos spent their time while I was sleeping, eating and walking with my book. (For those of you who want to know the book I devoured over the weekend, here we go: “Rethink How You Think” by Dr. David Stoop – excellent book! Of course there are more explanations how our conscious and subconscious process our thinking patterns to determine our behavior and how our pituitary and hippocampus do their marvelous job through shaping our habits and behaviors and how we can change our habits and behaviors if we train our thinking pattern by the Word of God – topics of fear, love, addiction were dealt with – I love it! And remember, Dr. Stoop is one of the psychologists coming on every day on the New Life radio show – newlife.com. Now you know why I read this excellent book.)

Anyways, so, on Sunday afternoon, all the Bankos decided to go to the New Jersey six flags for the last time before we head back to Maryland to ride one of those scary roller coaster and taste that “near death” experience for one last time. Seriously! Who would want that? Not me!

So, I said goodbye to them and found one corner at the hotel lobby and my little one wanted to stay with me. I knew that was not a good decision on his part because Mama Bear is not as fun to be with as Papa Bear who rarely gets tired of riding the roller coaster or jumping into the water with all his “cubs”. But my little one wanted to stay with me; not like he wanted to be with his Mama but he kind of had enough of that “near death” experience the previous day but he still could do some other activities with them.

They left and he sat next to me and began staring at me. I kept on reading my book as if I didn’t see him. Within five minutes, he said, “I should have gone with them.”

I said, “Really? Why?”

He said, “I don’t know. They will be away for a long time.”

I warned him ahead of time and told him that it wouldn’t be fun sitting there for a long time but he chose to stay with me anyways.

Well, the right parenting skill at that moment was to let him go through it so that he would pay more attention to Mama’s warnings next time.

Isn’t how God deal with us? He tells us ahead of time; He warns us about something; He keeps on saying, “No, don’t do it. It will hurt you.”

But we sometimes choose to do it anyways but our choices usually boomerang on us and blow the air out of our lungs in a second.

And I don’t know about you but for me, after I take my own choices, disregarding God’s, I find myself praying like this: “God, why are You letting this happen to me? Why me?” Or worse, I pray like this: “Please, God, take this from me, in the name of Jesus, Amen!” And the next thing I know, my prayer didn’t even pass the ceiling. Why?

Listen what the Bible says:

“Since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. – – –
but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm.” (Proverbs 1:30-31, 33)

But those who hear God’s warning will be kept from harm and danger. Sometimes it is not the devil but our own stubbornness which earns us all those hurts and pains. So, let’s listen to His voice that says, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21) so that we “be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Well, going back to my story, I saw my son suffering from “boredom” because of his own choice but I couldn’t do anything to reverse that. It was too late.

I continued reading my lovely book but my mother instinct didn’t let me enjoy it. So, I said, to myself, “Let me try to make his stay with Mama Bear a little enjoyable so that he wouldn’t feel the pain of the consequences of his choices.”

Well, that was not a good parenting skill on my part but I said, “Okay, so, what do you want to do?”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk right now.”

You don’t know how proud I was of him for saying that. When Mama Bear was chickening out for not letting her son experience the consequences of his choice, he stood his ground and faced the next three hours with grace.

Yes, let’s face the consequences of our choices with thankful heart without blaming God for it so that we learn from it never to make the same mistake again. ///