the fear of a child

This morning I was praying and my heart grew heavy with my children: God, give me the patience and strength for my children. Please take away nh anger. A child should fear their parents, but that does not mean for them to be afraid of their parents. Much like my early feelings of God, I thought the word fear was, well, frightening. I thought I was supposed to do what God tells me to do because I was afraid of the consequences. I did not think of it to mean fear as in respect. I mean, yes, God did some amazingly terrible things and such but Jesus came so we wouldn't have that kind of fear. He came for us to learn love and respect for God. No child should be afraid of their parents; but they should fear them... The word fear throughout the Bible has been translated many different ways. Among its more negative (and how I percieved the word to mean) there are also some positive light ones, such as revere, respect, anticipate, honor. And I've even heard the word love to be said in its place. We need to remember this when dealing with others, especially children. We need to love them. Now that doesn't mean don't punish them. There are consequences for every action, both negative and positive. People forget that there can be positive consequences. The word has gotten such a negative undertone to it, we must remember that much like "fear", consequences has good in it as well.