Good Morning Dear Ladies,
Happy Monday to you! I hope you heard a good preach at church yesterday and that your family enjoyed some old fashioned Sabbath rest.
I love Sundays. It has long been my custom to stop at the corner store and grab a newspaper on the way home from church. After feeding my family a tasty lunch, I announce to all within earshot that I am retiring to my bed and that I expect to be woken at 3:30 for teatime. It is a brilliant system and it has not been known to fail. At 3:30 on Sunday, there will be a knock on my bedroom door and in will come my hubby and or child carrying a cup of tea and a cookie just for me. It is the closest thing to magic that I know of.
Sunday afternoons my center of operations becomes my bed. After banishing children from my presence, I organize my domain. Pillows fluffed behind me, bible study to my right, mail beside that, newspaper on the left, diary on my lap, hankies and contraband potato chips on the bedside table. System or science? You decide.
When comfortable, I will start the process of reading the newspaper in a desperate attempt to remain intelligent and socially relevant. If I do this with any degree of success, I am certain to become overwhelmed at the state of global affairs. It doesn’t take me long, about one hour.
Once I have myself completely bewildered by the American political system one of two things will happen. I will start my bible study in order to reduce my panic and remind myself of God’s sovereignty or I will curl up in the fetal position and take a nap. I generally do both but will not confess the order of operations. I said I was attempting to remain socially relevant, I did not say I am ever successful.
If you had been sharing a cup of tea with me on Sunday, we would have discussed raising children in a world that worships celebrity. We would have used like “face book” and “social media”. You might have been impressed with my ability to balance a tea cup while waving my arms about and shouting. “How,” we would ask each other, “do we raise our children to be successful at real life in a world that measures success by the number of hits on YouTube or your number of followers on Twitter?” We would have had a really good time.
But you weren’t there and by evening I was feeling blue. It was then that I started to pray and peace started to speak to my agitated and socially relevant mind. What started as an impression grew as the week progressed and two scriptures came to my mind. The first was the from Mark 12:28-33,
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[b] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] There is no commandment greater than these.” 32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
I am more inclined to worry about things that involve my children. My inability drives me to my knees daily. I had no idea, when I conceived the little critters, that they would continually challenge my faith and sanity. I continually need to remember to pray and not worry. God has a plan for their lives; regardless of how I feel about the world they are living in. If I can teach them the guiding principle of loving God success will be theirs.
The other scripture came from the book of Colossians 3:23-24. 23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Surely, if I try to keep these scripture in front of my eyes, the Lord will be able to guide my efforts to mold my children. But can simple efforts yield solid results? Are the simple things enough? Below are two stories I encourage you to view with your children. Both of these women simply worked hard and yielded exceptional results.
The first is the story of Florence Patrick. She chose to wait tables part time when her children were at school. Flo however, was no ordinary waitress. She was so successful the owners of the restaurant where she served for 39 years had to build an addition on the restaurant to accommodate her regulars. Imagine being so skilled at your job it caused your employer to expand their business. Does this sound freakishly similar to kingdom work?
Find her story here: http://roadfood.com/Digest/480/enjoy-your-retirement-flo
The second is the story of Olivia Neubauer. Olivia turned 100 in March but that isn’t the impressive part. Olivia is a teacher, America’s oldest teacher, she started in 1935. Watch this video and see if every ounce of bad attitude doesn’t melt in the presence of true devotion. If I posses a quarter of Mrs. Neubauer’s composure at the age of eighty, I will consider myself successful.
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=9EDC23DE-6E03-11E1-9205000C296BA163
I hope that these stories will encourage you not to grow discouraged dear Teacher. Slow and steady wins the race. I know the Lord is with you as you teach your children daily to make their bed, put the dishes into the dishwasher and to put their shoes by the front door neatly. Such diligence pays dividends in time. Faithfulness in simple things delights the Lord’s heart. Habakkuk 2:3 says,
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.”
So don’t give up dear friend. Though today your children are causing chaos and mayhem making you want to cash in savings bonds to fund a trip to Tahiti, tomorrow they might surprise you. Tomorrow they will hang up the towels after they shower without you reminding them. Tomorrow they will put their underpants in the laundry hamper. Tomorrow they will develop into radically functional adults that love Jesus. You will be thrilled, you will be astonished, and you will rejoice…..you might even tweet about it.
