It was winter time and I was about ten years old. One day I asked my mum to let me go sledging with my brother on a hill just outside our town. Mum suggested we went somewhere nearer our house, but I insisted and she finally agreed to let us go to the hill.

The boy next door came with us too. After a few rounds, he fell from his sledge just in front of us. We were speeding down and as we didn’t want to hit him, we pulled hard to the right and landed in some bushes.

I fell from the sledge and broke my leg. I spent that Christmas holiday with my leg in plaster, feeling very guilty and thinking that none of it would have happened, had I chosen to obey my mum’s advice.

-- Cristina

If you are a child of God, but your parents don’t know God personally, and their example and advice are not according to His will, you must continue to respect them (talking nicely to them, helping them, praying for them).

But there will be situations when you’ll not be able to obey them. Maybe they will ask you to lie for them, to buy alcohol, to steal something or to do other things you know are not pleasing to God. In such situations you’ll have to refuse to obey them, but in a respectful way.

Have you ever been in such a situation?