In my incredibly, high powered, prestigious job as a sample lady at Wal Mart, it is my duty to provide products to customers for sampling. I stand there looking quite lovely in orange, smiling, pretending to be Vana White, enticing people to approach my cart. Of course, the choice is totally there's as to whether or not they will sample. I had one grown man last week stand at my cart taking sample after sample, stuffing his face. "Dude! This is a sample cart not a buffet!" I wanted to shout at him as his hand reached for yet ANOTHER power bar. If I had been able to set my Holy Ghost aside, climb over that cart in an even remotely ladylike manner and pinch this guys head off I would have. Fortunately, for all involved, my Holy Ghost stayed firmly in tact. It is incumbent upon my customers to make their own CHOICE as to whether or not they want what I am offering on any given day.
This leads me to my current "rant and rave." I have encountered a new phenomenon in our movement. There are Holy Ghost filled, tongue talking believers out there who are giving there children the choice of whether or not to attend church with them! You may be thinking to yourself, "Shawnacee, you must be speaking of children over the age of eighteen, or young adults who are still living at home? Right" WRONG!! No, I am speaking of elementary aged children and very young teens!! Several individuals who adhere to this newfangled way of raising their children are very faithful to the house of God themselves, yet their children are given a choice as to whether they would like to attend church with their parents that day or evening. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what decision these children are going to make. Of course they are going to want to sleep in and play instead of going to church! Their kids for crying out loud, they do not have the wisdom or the life experiences to make wise choices, that's why they have been given parents. Too often here of late I see families where the children act as the adults and the parents as the children. As my children's father use to say, "the inmates are running the asylum!"
I am breathing heavily with anger and frustration over this. I have one question mom and dad. When your children are driving cars and sneaking out of windows to meet up with the opposite sex, or sneaking behind the gym at school to do drugs and smoke will you still be giving them a choice regarding church? Let me clue you in on something.........if they don't wanna go now, they sure as heck (is that a cuss word?) won't want to go then!
I don't claim to be the mother of the decade, I have, do and will make mistakes in the raising of my children just as all parents do from time to time, but this is beyond the pale! If the government or evil forces limited who could attend church from our home, with only one person allowed to go it would be my daughter Haley. I would sacrifice my own soul for hers, it is absolutely VITAL that she be saved! I don't get it.
Oh don't worry, my children had choices........they chose whether or not to go to church willingly or under threat of death. Also, they chose what they wore........they could wear modest, holy, conservative, or, if they didn't like that, they could sport a very fashionable hand print on their bare backsides.......pick one. They also had a choice in who they dated......christians from our church, or, a christian from a neighboring church of like faith. But when it came to their salvation..........until they became legally emancipated at the age of eighteen, I AND THEIR FATHER made that decision for them. The choice was Heaven or hell and Heaven won out every time.
I can honestly say that when I stand before God's holy throne on judgement day that I will be guiltless when it comes to the way that I raised our three precious children. They were taught to be faithful to the house of God, reverence Him, have complete and utter faith in Him and that His word is infallible! If they choose as adults to to reject those teachings, they are free to do so. They KNOW the correct path.
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Mom or dad, I beg you, GET A CLUE before your precious little ones are clued in to the enticing, destructive, pleasures of sin for a season. For surely, there will be a day when they cannot make a choice regarding their eternities. Let them choose the flavor of ice cream they want, but please, not their souls!
And now, as I try to catch my breath and calm my nerves after having practically beaten this keyboard into fragments, I think I will go take a Benadryl or something and try to relax.
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