—By Mama & Techi Maria #130 DO 2648 5/90

MAKING NEW HABITS!

1. Remember when you were a little girl, how every night you were told to brush your teeth? Some nights you remembered, but most nights you forgot & had to be reminded.

2. That's the way it is whenever you're trying to break bad habits & make new habits; you usually forget more often than you remember. But as you keep going & keep working on it‚ you begin to forget a little bit less & remember a little bit more. Then pretty soon your forgetting has shrunk down to just a few times, & your remembering has grown to most of the time! Then after awhile, you've replaced your old bad habit with your new good habit & you remember all of the time.

3. You never forget to brush your teeth now, do you? But it took quite a long time to finally make that a habit, didn't it? So remember that when you're first trying to break a bad habit & make a new habit; you're bound to make mistakes & have slip-ups quite often. But you just have to keep going regardless, & don't get discouraged!

4. Some days you'll have bad days & other days you'll have good days. But as you just keep fighting the Devil & keep going forward for the Lord, you'll get better & better, & be doing better & better! So don't worry if you fall or slip here & there along the way, just get up & keep fighting!

FEELING BAD ABOUT DOING WRONG

5. (Techi: When I do something wrong or I've lied about something, or I've done something & I haven't told anybody about it, if I don't confess it to someone, I usually feel a little sick in my tummy. I need to go tell them, otherwise I'll get sick.) Either way is difficult, but it's worse not confessing! Right?

6. (Techi: Yes, I always feel worse when I don't. If I've done something bad & I don't want to confess it‚ even when I'm embarrassed about it & I don't want to tell anyone‚ I know that I still have to. If I don't, I feel sick! Or when I tell a half-truth‚ I always feel bad about it afterwards, so I have to confess it if I want to feel better, so I can go to sleep at night without worrying about it.)

7. Well‚ Honey‚ that's the kind of sensitivity that is good, to feel so bad about doing wrong that it helps you to confess & make things right! These are some very important lessons you're learning now, & they're helping you to really grow up. Praise the Lord! I love you!

QUESTIONS

9) If you're trying to break bad habits & make new‚ good habits‚ but you find yourself slipping up, making mistakes & falling into the old bad habits, what should you do?

1. Give up in despair & pull out your hair!
2. Worry & fret `cause you're not perfect yet!
3. Keep up the fight & try to do what is right!

10) (T or F) If you keep working on overcoming a bad habit, & keep trying to break the old habit & practice the new good habit, pretty soon you'll remember to do what's right most of the time.

11) Feeling bad after lying or doing wrong is a kind of "sensitivity." Is it good to be sensitive in this way?—Or would it better to be "tough" & hard & able to do wrong things without worrying about them afterwards?

12) How do you usually feel after you do wrong things that are unconfessed?

13) Why do you think the Lord lets us feel bad when we lie or do something wrong that we cover up?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family