Name: My name is Jennifer Ete, and I'm addicted to SGBD
Family: A lovely husband with a cool New Zealand accent, six homeschooled children, one fat cat, a rabbit and a partridge in a pear tree.
I've been practicing the SGBD technique for several days now. My first experience was a learning experience. I told my children that we would go on a field trip. I got online to look up the address while the kids played on the driveway while waiting for me. I found the address and thought to myself that I really should get going instead of hanging about online. I decided to quickly check my email "just because," but had the thought again that I really should get going and check the email later. I didn't listen. A third time the thought came, and I still stood there finishing my email check. Moments later, my 8 year old comes up the stairs crying with blood pouring out of his head. Four staples and a concussion later, I decided that I need to pay attention the first time the impressions come along.
I can hear myself saying over and over to my own children, "You need to do what I ask you to do the first time I ask." Why exactly did I think the rules were different for me?? (so dumb)
Experience #2 - I was in the hospital over the weekend with one of my other children (this time it wasn't my fault...) and I felt that I should just go for a little walk around the halls instead of sitting in the room at that moment. My son's staples fresh in my mind, I hoped up and announced that I was going for a walk. My daughter asked where and why. I told her I didn't know, but I needed to go right now. While I was going, absolutely nothing of great consequence happened to me. I was confused, but stayed gone until I felt right about returning to the room. When I returned, my daughter told me that she'd just had her first visitor, and was feeling really good that someone had thought to stop by and bring her flowers. She and her friend had a nice visit and her spirits had been lifted. I figured that had I been in the room, the conversation would have been stifled a bit, because teen girls can't really "talk" when somebody's mom is sitting there, so I felt pretty good about myself for listening.
Nice to meet a fellow addict. Wow! You lead a eventful life ; ) Thanks for sharing your awesome stories! I'm so thrilled to be a part of this.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the Lord merciful? He gives us SGBDs to practice on while we are learning to listen and act on them quickly. My kids were in the back yard last week, playing where I could see them from kitchen windows. My youngest woke up and was hungry so I sat on the couch in the living room to feed her. When she finished I took a quick moment to read email when I got the SGBD to "check on the kids." It was a very quiet, unobtrusive thought, almost imperceptible. There was no "voice" in my head or urgent feeling to "GET UP AND CHECK ON YOUR KIDS!!" So, not wanting to be bothered, I reasoned that if anything were wrong there'd be noise (duh, not thinking at the time that the noise comes after the mishap). A few moments later I got the same prompting. So I got up off my behind and looked out the kitchen window. Molly (8) was holding Lily (22 mos) by the hand walking away from the lake, but Lily was soaked up to her armpits. She had ventured out into the water, but Molly had brought her back. Whew! Had I acted the first time, I would have been able to prevent her going into the lake in the first place. It was very humbling to realize that my "not wanting to be bothered" could have resulted in a tragedy. So here's to all of us having a short learning curve!
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