self.

"Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness stretches to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains. Your justice flows like the ocean tide. I will lift my voice to worship You my King. I will find my strength in the shadow of Your wings." The past week as I've paused to be still and know, this song has been my heart song. Thank you, King David and whoever put it to music this century. To begin there. Life.

Thank You, God, for carrying Your son deeper in to Your truth. Getting to see the fruit of Your love on my nine-year-old boy drops me to my knees.

Last night as I was tucking in Elise, Kaeden stopped in to tell me he needed to talk with me when Elise and I were finished. He's a strong 8 on the enneagram which means for him that often he has an agenda and expects the rest of us to play our part he's thought our for us to play. My spirit was not right in expectation of what he needed, even put off that he wasn't tucking in to bed.

I finished tucking in Elise and went into his room where Andrew was snuggling 3-year-old brother Wyatt to sleep on the bottom bunk. Kaeden climbed down and walked me to the living room couch. We sat down - and silence happened. It was then my heart knew this was bigger than any self-agenda of my beloved 8.

He broke the silence, "Mom, last year when I was playing with Riley [a peer 5 houses down our street], I took a Pokemon holder that was his."

Took everything in me to be still and know. i.e. - to say nothing and listen in a space loaded with things to not say. Father, You keep me quiet and You speak when it's time to speak.

"It had mostly psychic-type cards in it... He doesn't know I took it. It's the one I lost last year that had all my good cards in it. I stole it."

gently recalling the holder's arrival in our home: "I knew you stole it."

with tears: "You did? ... Why didn't you discipline me?!"

-space held-

"I think what's happening right now is more powerful than any way I could have disciplined you."

His tears continued to fall.

What unraveled was his internal struggle about needing to apologize - not wanting to - not wanting to lose a friendship - not wanting his friend or his friends' parents to know he would do something like that -

**a bit of a background - God has set Kaeden's heart in steady rhythm with mine since day 1. This boy reads my thoughts, not trying to, just knows. Even today for example, I was thinking we should let the bunnies come in to meet friends who were visiting us, but I said nothing. In walks Kaeden hours later when friends were over, with a bunny in his arms to share with our friends!! I think something - he'll verbalize my thought minutes later. Andrew and I will talk about something the day before in full privacy, and Kaeden will bring it up in conversation the following day. It's uncanny. Always thrills me.**

Yesterday in the peace of washing dishes, I was thinking about the victories Kaeden has been claiming over lies and deception. For years the enemy has been sending his servants to throw sucker punches at Kaeden. Weekly, some weeks, daily - lying, stealing, hiding, sneaking, covering up, fear of disappointing, more lying... We have been walking through this as a family, most intensely the last 2 years. Much prayer, speaking truth, telling darkness to leave and light to come, failing and frustration on all of our parts, apologizing, forgiving, walking, stumbling, getting up, ... Back to yesterday, God was lighting in my mind the truth our Kaeden has been walking in, the ground the enemy has been losing. Awesome. Thrilled and thankful.

So, yesterday we were continuing our journey in the allegory Pilgrim's Progress, per Kaeden's request that we put it back into our homeschool routine together. Little Pilgrim leaves the Palace Beautiful and continues his journey to the Celestial City, faces and fights a sweet, victorious battle over Self. Encounters other pilgrims running the opposite direction, advising Little Pilgrim to turn around, because what's next is too hard! He continues on, sensing angels around him, ready to keep him from fall. Little Pilgrim is journeying through a difficult place when he hears a whisper from one of the Wicked Prince's servants, thinks it might be his own thought and becomes fearful that he would think such a bad thought - not actually his thought.  ------ As is our habit after reading together, Kaeden verbally narrated (told back) what he heard from the reading, and he touched on all these spots, briefly relating to each of them - facing Self, sensing angels, deceptive whisper from the servant that turns out to not really be his own thought! These revelatory times are moments of heaven on earth for me.

So, back to last night, we're sitting together still on the couch, and I share thoughts I had earlier that day about victory I see him knowing over old ways of operating. Tears continue to fall as we share together that God is near.

So much more to share with you, and I interrupt myself again to tell you that it's the story, friend. I fully believe that the story Kaeden and I share in reading Pilgrim's Progress together was a piece of releasing him to truth in his own story. More on that some other time...

Kaeden's internal struggle had unraveled, and he decided that he would apologize to Riley in the morning, pushing through the fears that flooded him. I shared my recall of Little Pilgrim's battle with Self and asked if I could pray for him. I did - releasing the grip of fear, unleashing the freedom of truth. such peace.

He climbed in to bed, waking up twice through the night, not unusual for our boy's busy brain, waking in the morning, rested. Around 9:15am I texted Riley's mom to see if Kaeden could go down to apologize for something.

He asked me to join him, and we walked the snowy, frigid path together to Riley's, warm in the truth flowing through him waiting to be released. Kaeden's only words, "This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life - my spiritual life."

He knocked on their door, nearly left me standing outside, ready to get into the house and make this happen! As Riley and his father stood there wondering what in the world was about to happen, Kaeden shared the truth of what he did, gave Riley money to compensate, and apologized.

Both Riley and his father responded with obvious surprise on their faces and body language, not remembering the existence of said holder, uncertain what to do or say, saying anything they could think of to make Kaeden feel like it was okay, total grace, father thanking Kaeden multiple times for coming down and doing the right thing. We received a text later from Riley's mom, "Chris told me about the conversation Kaeden had with Riley. Please tell him that I am very proud of him! It takes a lot of character to admit when you've made a mistake. You're raising a great kid!"

Our walk back up to our house, "How was that for you?"

"Harder and easier than I thought it would be."

"What was the hardest part?"

"Saying, 'I'm sorry.' was the hardest part."

-space held-