Jealousy

I'm using a curriculum to teach the Bible to the kids, which at first seemed unnecessary to me, because isn't the Bible all you need to teach the Bible?  But the curriculum just organizes it into easy chunks to teach, and suggests good discussion points.

This morning, we were reading in the book of James about jealousy.  The curriculum guide said, "Tell your children about a time when you were jealous, and then confess it to God and ask for forgiveness."  The incident that came to my mind was one that I don't think I've ever told anyone, and I certainly never planned on telling my kids.  It was something I did in an unreasonable fit of jealousy.  I took a deep breath and started telling the kids. I immediately had their full attention.

Their eyes widened as they listened to how foolish their mommy was.  One of them asked in disbelief, "How old were you?"  And I said ,"Old enough to know better, for sure.  I was almost thirty."  Then I confessed to God and asked His forgiveness, and it was very freeing.  To my surprise, Sarah piped up and told about a time when she was jealous, and then she spontaneously prayed and asked forgiveness.  We both glanced at Noah, and he volunteered something that makes him jealous (which I didn't even know about), and then he said a great prayer.