Yesterday was a triumphant moment for Rachel, who had received her report book earlier. She had done very well academically. What had done us proud is that her character development has surpassed our expectations. Her form teacher had rated her ‘Very Good’ in all 5 of the Personal Qualities of Courtesy, Helpfulness, Responsibility, Self-confidence and Work Attitude, besides Conduct, in addition to a favorable comment.
Rachel had gain much maturity this year as she bravely took on the challenges of a busier life. This is the first year she started joining the school choir, personal violin lessons and daily practices, on top of many other activities that required much of her time away from home, besides having to welcome a newborn sister which means less of mommy to see her through homework and exam preparations. She has also taken the challenge to improve on her Mandarin by being committed to watch a 7-8pm Korean serial dubbed in Chinese on the 2nd semester.
Contrary to the behaviors in the past, she no longer gives up easily on difficult tasks but learned to take them on humbly. Our conversations about doing everything with an attitude of joy seems to awaken her to all the endless possibilities that she can embrace. All of a sudden she is no longer afraid and complaining, but now a diligent doer with great faithfulness.
And I don’t think this change of attitude is due to her desire for the reward which we had promised her at the end of the year. But it is God’s grace and mercy working in and through all of us. As parents, we have learned that true forgiveness can do wonders to a child’s soul. In the past, Rachel had been afraid of us whenever she did wrong for fear of punishment (such as 3hr lecture… 
) so she would keep all her wrong-doings to herself and manifest her frustrations in other ways.
Things took a spiralling downturn towards the middle of the year where a mini crisis woke us parents up. God has humbled us to seek forgiveness from our heart-broken daughter and brought healing and restoration to our relationships. We learned that a child wants very much to confide in us when she has done something wrong because she is also fearful of making mistakes which are inevitable sometimes. But our responses often take the child as doing wrong purposefully and therefore meted out unnecessary punishments, which caused the child to withdraw more and more.
As parents we have to ask God daily for discernment and exercise unconditional love when dealing with our children. We must not betray our children’s trust in us, for love always trusts, so we have to commit our inner insecurities to God rather than taking matters into our own hands whenever our children did wrong.
Love the way God loves is never wrong.
