I was reminded again today that raising children is an awesome responsibility for parents such as my wife and I. With that word “awesome” I mean “far-encompassing”, “eternal ramifications”, and “don’t-think-too-much-about-it-or-you’ll-freak-out”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How we raise our children and what we instill in them will\u00a0determine in large part what type of people they will become. Our influence as parents will be\u00a0with them forever. I can start to see why the Good Lord commanded us to “Honor your Father and your Mother.” It is us that have been given the office of teacher, tudor, encourager, as well as judge, jury, and enforcer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Naturally we all want our children to grow up to be responsible citizens. We want them to be well-adjusted and well-socialized, able to get along with others. We also want them to respect authority and display good manners. Just plug in any of the widely-held notions of what makes a person well-adjusted and functional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Add to this the idea that our children will learn to relate to their Heavenly Father as they have related to their natural Father. (Is this another reason why the Good Lord commands us to “Honor your Father and your Mother”?) I think this is true! And so we come to realize that raising kids is an awesome responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My daughter is 3 years old and even at this\u00a0age (earlier actually) she is\u00a0testing\u00a0authority. She tests the\u00a0boundaries\u00a0my wife and I\u00a0have set up.\u00a0And when\u00a0decision time\u00a0arrives, sometimes she chooses to throw a fit rather than obey. My little princess asks\u00a0“why”\u00a0all the time. If only I could speak\u00a0using her limited vocabulary and her limited understanding… perhaps\u00a0everything would\u00a0make sense to her.\u00a0But sooner or later, the tears flow. My daughter cries because she is not getting her way. And I cry because\u00a0God Almighty Himself has given me\u00a0this awesome responsibility and I feel like am goofing it up from time to time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Poor 1st child…\u00a0“Your Mommy and Daddy are going to figure things out ON you, ha ha”. My wife and I can find humor in many things.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Do you have kids? Are they all grown up? How are they now? How do they relate to God? Are they getting along and being productive members of\u00a0society? Are they unable or unwilling to\u00a0humble themselves?\u00a0Just wait until they\u00a0have kids!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lord, have mercy on us all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hug your kids now,
\nJim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was reminded again today that raising children is an awesome responsibility for parents such as my wife and I. With that word “awesome” I mean “far-encompassing”, “eternal ramifications”, and “don’t-think-too-much-about-it-or-you’ll-freak-out”.\u00a0 How we raise our children and what we instill in them will\u00a0determine in large part what type of people they will become. Our influence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,79,80,82,81],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessings","tag-children","tag-parenting","tag-responsibility","tag-stress"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}