Her hair, silky and shiny, slid across her face. She looked so pretty in the soft glow of the lamp that illuminated the room. Her eyes stared into mine with a flare of defiance, her pout revealing the condition of her heart.

“I want what she has. Why don’t I have what she has?”

I looked at my child with a heart softening to her plight as I witnessed the war she was clearly fighting within her soul. I held her hands and revealed the truth to my child’s spirit: the struggle with which you fight has a name… and her name is covet.

It wasn’t enough to just reveal the truth to my daughters spirit but open up my spirit as well. Coveting is an ugly condition with which most of us struggle each and every day. Every person must wrestle with this ugly beast and the only way to win this war is through Jesus.

To deny Him our thankfulness for what we do have would be an uglier war to fight for we have submitted our very being to His name. The power of gratefulness releases us to live and love with abandon. There are no boundaries in our thankfulness; no walls exist for us to ram ourselves against causing us the natural consequence of more infliction. No, there is no pain in thankfulness but there is great pain in coveting.

It took time for her pout to disappear, but I did notice that she clutched her doll a little tighter and hugged me a little longer. And not because she fully grasped the lesson I was trying to teach her, but I believe that in the moment I, her mother, became a little more human.

I too fight this war. I too must let go of the toxic relationship I have with coveting for she is no friend of mine.

And sin found a way to use that command and cause me to want all kinds of things I should not want. But without the law, sin has no power.

Romans 7:8