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In Which...If You Three Can't Get Along...I'm Giving You Leprosy!

When your job is to homeschool your three children, you end up spending a lot of time together. Of course close sibling relationships is one of the benefits of our school of choice, so this is not a bad thing. But let's be real. All that quality time together means that eventually somebody is going to get on someone else's nerves!

The other day I read a passage of Scripture that hit so close to home I laughed out loud. Maybe other mom's here can relate. 

In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron, the big brother and sister of Moses, start complaining because Moses has a foreign wife.  Now this isn't new information to them.  He didn't go out for a weekend to blow off steam and come home married or anything. But all of a sudden Miriam and Aaron are bugged by it and start complaining, so the mother in me knows they were just trying to pick a fight. I love the end of verse two:
"And the Lord heard them."
In my home, I do my best not to referee every single conversation my kiddos have. It's part of the learning experience, right? But naturally there comes a point, where words get mean or the hurt gets real, or even the noise level just gets too loud, and mommy. hears. them. 

So in verse 4, the Lord says, "Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you." And this is where I laughed. I can just picture Moses, Aaron, and Miriam hanging their heads and dragging their feet, knowing in their hearts that they went to far. Now Dad's involved and how is this going to play out? Then in verse 6, "he said, 'Listen to my words.'"

I HAVE SAID THIS! This (almost) exact scene has played out in my home so many times that I can almost hear the tone of God's voice as he evenly and emphatically says, "Listen to my words."

In the rest of the passage God reminds Miriam and Aaron that yes, Moses does have special privileges, but he also has special responsibilities that neither of you have, so what exactly do you think you're griping about? Then he puts Miriam (whom I'm guessing was the instigator of this little scuffle) in a time out. True, her time out involved seven days in isolation with leprosy (and that was God showing mercy), so my kids really need to be a little more grateful for their four minutes in a chair. Finally the icing on the cake, God's anger burned against them and he left. Maybe he went to take a bubble bath or get a cup of coffee. Both are particularly effective at cooling down from crazy kids, I know.

It's nice to know that even the perfect parent can get fed up with the kids too.

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