Good Intentions

“Mom, am I annoying?” Hollie asked when I came into her bedroom to kiss her goodnight.

“No,” I assured her.

“What if other people think I’m annoying?”

“You’re not responsible for what other people think. You are only responsible for what you do,” I reminded her. “Is this about the fight you had with your sister?”

“What fight?”

“The one where Katie shoved you off the computer chair because you kept pushing buttons when the screen was locked up.”

“No,” Hollie replied. “It’s about something that happened at school.”

To help my nine-year-old through this problem, I called upon a rhyme that I created several months earlier for cases just like this one.

“When intentions are good and your heart’s in the right place,” the verse stated, “don’t worry about the outcome … it’s covered by grace.”

“Were your intentions good?” I asked.

Hollie nodded.

“Then that’s all that matters,” I assured her. “The only behavior you can control is your own.”

That was all Hollie needed to hear as she smiled and pulled the covers up to her chin. That’s all any of should need to get a good night’s sleep—to know that we’ve done our best. Why, then, do we get sucked into thinking about what we should have done to make a situation end better? True peace comes from accepting that we are not responsible for the outcome, only the effort as we do our best and let God do the rest … one good intention at a time.

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