Have Our Children Been Prepared to Live in the World?
I look at my 3 kids and I feel time flies real fast.
(The eldest turns 18 in less than 2 months!)
Anyway, just the other day, I found my old notes from attending a parenting seminar some years ago.
Am grateful for the reminders.
Here are some of them:
Our children are entrusted into our hands for a short while, for us to raise and teach according to their Redeemer’s plans and will. They are not like paintings or antiques, which we put on display to gain people’s attention and compliments.Children are like arrows (Psalm 127), and parents will need to release their arrows one day. The question is, have they been prepared to live in the world and to be away from us?Raising children is a spiritual warfare. Whether or not our children care about spiritual matters depends a lot on whether their parents introduce them since they’re little.
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I often say to my kids, “I don’t know how much time I still have with you. No one knows when we’ll leave the world. But as long as you are still with us, Mommy and Daddy will teach you, as much as possible, things which you need to know and learn, to live in the world without us. You may not like it when we rebuke / tell you off / ask you to stop doing something which we believe is not good for you. Dealing with your resistance / talkbacks are emotionally exhausting, too. But the way I see it, it’s like preparing each of you to go to war, we need to equip and train you as best as we can, while we still can, before you actually leave home. We do what we need to do, because we love you and we are accountable to God to raise you during the limited time we have with you.”
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I know I am still learning along the way.
May God help every parent, and give us the wisdom, mercy and patience needed daily.
