33 TRANSPARENCY WILL EITHER MAKE YOU A
HYPOCRITE OR A HERO DEPENDING ON WHO A CHILD SEES BEHIND YOUR FAçADE.

“My parents really act differently at church than at home,” confided the teenager.

After twenty years of counseling families, youth ministry, and talking with teenagers, I learned much about façades. The faces that parents and children put on at church can be quite different from what goes on at home behind closed doors.

Parents or children might be able to fool a pastor some of the time, but they know the truth about one another. Judi and I had a rocky season in our marriage. At times we had verbal disagreements, which our children overheard. One day our youngest son came home and asked at dinner, “Dad, are you and mom going to get a divorce?”

We were shocked at his question. We had briefly considered a divorce, but never mentioned it to the children. Patrick confided, “Most of my classmates have parents who are divorced. They said it started with verbal fights like you and mom have sometime. So, I thought you might be getting a divorce too.”

Children really know what’s going on in a marriage or a family. We cannot hide behind façades with our children. At times their intuition tells them about family problems even when those problems aren’t verbalized by the parents. What kind of person do your children really see at home?

Do your children see the Lord shining through you? Are you a reflection of His glory? Or is the window of your life so dirty that Christ in you is distorted?

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18).