The Dethroning Process

Krissy is having a day today. She is definitely two years old! She is saying no to everything and she will do this thing were she shakes her whole body "no," not just her head, while she is screaming "no" at the top of her lungs. She is going to have a very sore bottom and have a long year at this rate.

I heard it once called "the dethroning process." I think it was from John Rosemond's book, "Making the Terrible Twos Terrific." It is very true. Up until now, everything in Krissy's life has told her that she is the center of the universe. When she was hungry, someone fed her, when she had a wet diaper, someone changed it, when she cried, someone picked her up, but now, she is learning that she is not the center of the universe, but her parents are! She must do some things on her own. She actually took to potty training very well. She hated the feeling of wet and dirty diapers anyway, so she loved getting rid of those. Now my problem is getting her to leave her diaper on at night so she doesn't wake up in a wet bed every morning. She has had a much harder time, however, with simple obedience. When I ask her to do anything, like come over to get dressed, she says no and runs away. But if I said to NOT come over here and get dressed she would do it immediately. What is that!

Why do we, as humans, have this nature to defy? We laugh when we see it in a two year old but we all do it! If you see a sign that says, "don't touch" in a store, you instantly want to touch it. If you hear about a place that you shouldn't go, or a picture that you shouldn't see, you want to see it. And when we do actually fall into the temptation and do whatever it is that we shouldn't have done, we almost always regret it. I remember when my husband told me that he saw the video on the Internet of a war prisoner getting his head chopped off. He knew he shouldn't have seen in, but he did it anyway and he says it still haunts him. It's pretty easy to see how Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.

So why are we born with this nature? I guess it is because of sin, but Adam and Eve had it even before they had sinned. I know the theory for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe this applies to our "good and bad" as well. In order to have the ability to do extreme good, we must also have the ability to do extreme bad. What a slippery slope. Thank you God, for saving me from myself, and never allowing me to experience my extreme bad in order to experience Your extreme good.