“Mom, why can’t I go and see that movie?  Everyone else is seeing it!”  Aaron asked one day.  We were in Arkansas and I was driving him to Fun City to meet one of his friends.  He was munching on a sandwich that he had made at his grandparents.   His father and I have had this conversation with him many times before but nevertheless I tried to explain our position again.  “Aaron,”  I explained, “it matters what we put into our mind.  We’ve done the reviews and although this movie isn’t as bad as most it still has some questionable things in it.”  “But Mom,” he said, “it won’t influence me.  It’s just one or two bad words.”   Sensing I was beginning to lose patience I shot up a quick prayer for heavenly wisdom.   A few minutes later as he was finishing up his sandwich I asked him if it was good.   To which he replied that it was great.  “So,”  I said, “it didn’t bother you that one side was moldy?”   “Yes!  Gross, I can’t believe that I ate moldy bread!  Wait a minute, you knew about it and didn’t tell me?”  He asked.  To which I replied, “Sure I knew about it, but it was just a little mold.  What’s the big deal?  The rest of the sandwich was fine, right?”  At this point I would have loved to have had a camera for the look on his face was priceless.  “No,” he said, “The rest of the sandwich was not fine!”  “But, isn’t that the same thing as the movie with just a few bad words?  You didn’t have any problems wanting to put that into your mind.”  I explained.  “In fact, it seems to me that it’s worse than the moldy bread because food comes into your body and leaves but what we put into our mind stays, goes into our heart and makes us who we are.” 

I hope and pray that he finally understood.  As a mother it’s important that we seize these teaching moments with our children and then pray that God will bless our efforts so that “the father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.” (Pro 23:24-25)

“Mom,” Aaron asked a few minutes later, “that bread didn’t really have mold on it did it?”