Keeping a record

My youngest often asks me to rate her and her siblings at various tasks. “Mom, who is the best at doing the dishes?” or “Mom, am I better at this than the other kids?” I think it’s her way of differentiating herself, of finding her own identity as the last in the family. There are things that she is good at doing and I don’t mind praising her when she does something well.

The other night she asked me one of these comparison questions and I replied, “I don’t want to keep score. I don’t want to be compiling a list of things that each of you do well and poorly. I just want to recognize when you do something well and that’s it.”

She understood what I was saying and figured it made sense.

Of course after we had the conversation a scripture came to mind, a small verse, but so on the mark that it rang in my mind.

I Corinthians 13: 5 It [love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.