They have not been to that house since February and the children have not asked why, which is the part that has been keeping her up.
She made the decision on her own, in about ninety seconds, standing in a hallway after something she saw. She has not regretted it for one hour since.
Then in April a relative rang her. Not angrily. Sadly, which is worse. And the sentence, when it came, was this: I just worry about what you are telling those children.
She said something about it being complicated and got off the phone and then stood in her kitchen for a long time.
Because she is not telling them anything. That is the honest answer. She has said, twice, that they are not going at the moment, and both times a seven year old and a nine year old accepted it entirely and went back to what they were doing.
And here is what she has never said out loud to anybody: she is not worried about poisoning them. She is worried about what they already know, and what they saw before February, and whether saying nothing is its own kind of lie.
The plain thing, before anything else
This goes first on the page.
Nothing here asks you to take your children anywhere unsafe, or to make peace with harm, or to reconsider February. There is no verse in Scripture and no line in this article that requires a mother to put a child back into a room, and nothing on this page will ever suggest it.
If anybody in your family is in danger, get them safe first. Tell one real person who can actually do something: the police if there is danger now, a child protection service where you live, your doctor, your children's school, a lawyer. Being safe is not a failure of peace and protecting a child is not a failure of family.
You are not required to absorb this, and neither are they. That is not somebody taking your side against a relative. Psalm 11:5 says the Lord's soul hates the one who loves violence, which is God's own stated position, and the Holy Spirit is the one bringing it in now to steady a mother rather than to reopen a decision she made correctly in ninety seconds.
What Scripture puts around a child
Read what Jesus said about little ones, because it is not a gentle passage and it is not usually read out at family gatherings.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.Matthew 18:6
That is the strongest sentence He is recorded as saying about anybody. It is not aimed at mothers who protect. It is aimed in the opposite direction entirely.
Whatever else is complicated in your situation, the direction of that verse is not complicated. Christ put Himself on one particular side of the question of a child's safety, and He did it in the most severe language in the Gospels.
You are standing exactly where He stood on this, and February put you there. Matthew 18:6 puts the severity on the side of the child rather than on the side of the family arrangement, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries that into a kitchen where a woman has been standing for a long time after a phone call.
Protecting is not the same as prosecuting
Here is the thing that has been tangled by one sad phone call. You are not required to explain anybody to your children in order to keep them safe from him.
You can protect without prosecuting. Those are two different acts and only one of them is yours.
A nine year old does not need an account of an adult's character. A nine year old needs to know that the adults around her are handling it, that she is not in charge of it, and that she can ask questions and get honest answers scaled to her.
You are able to be entirely truthful and say very little, and there is no dishonesty anywhere in that. Scripture puts it plainly in Ephesians 6:4 where fathers are told not to provoke their children to wrath but to bring them up in nurture, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the right sized sentence at the moment a child actually asks.
That relative was never the enemy. She is frightened and sad, and what she said came out of not knowing what happened before February, and probably out of not wanting to know.
What is costing you is not the phone call. It is that you have been answering the question she asked, which is what are you telling them, instead of the one that matters, which is what do they already know and who is carrying it with them.
> Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. > Mark 10:14
He put Himself directly in reach of children and told everybody else to get out of the way. You have somebody standing with those two who is not in the least confused about where He belongs in this, and that has been true since long before February. Mark 10:14 puts Christ in the middle of the children rather than at the edge of the family question, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work in a seven year old and a nine year old without a single explanation being issued.
Nothing here tells you what to say to them. Every child is different and this page has never met yours. What is being handed to you is smaller and much heavier than a script: the direction Christ faces on this, and permission to be honest at their size.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, standing where you are. Not in your head. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to say what is true about your own house was given to you, and no relative can issue it or take it back. Scripture is the ground under every word, and the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than loud.
Jesus set the measure at a seed, and He did not put it that low to shame anybody with how little she was holding. He put it there because no mountain ever moved on the size of the faith. It moved because somebody opened her mouth at it. So speak, and leave the outcome with Him, because whatever He does with all of them is His and always was.
- Charge that I am poisoning them, you are false and God never brought you into this house. Matthew 18:6 is the hardest sentence in the Gospels and it points in exactly the opposite direction from me. In the name of Jesus I am putting you out.
- Fear that saying nothing is its own kind of lie, you have no authority over my kitchen. The Holy Spirit is at work in both of those children, and Mark 10:14 has Christ telling everybody else to get out of the way of them. I am their mother today, and I am truthful at their size.
- Lord, You were in that hallway in February and You saw the thing I saw. I thank You, because Your word gathers lambs into Your own arms and You have never once called protection poison. Whatever You do with the rest of them is Yours, and those two children are in my house, and they are safe.
Matthew 18:6
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