When I go for walks in the morning, I pass several houses which have gravel yards. Almost all of them have weeds poking up through the rock. I always think to myself, “you better get out your grass/weed spray and spray before they get out of hand.”
One morning as I walked passed a gravel yard, I noticed that in front by the fence they had dug out a square area and had poured cement into it. I thought, “wow, they are serious about not wanting weeds in that area. They’ll never have to worry about that spot again.” Then as I continued walking pass the house each morning, I saw more areas cleared away and more cement poured until they had the whole front section full of concrete. It looked nice and there was no chance of grass and weeds overrunning it.
Now since my mind seems to always want to find a correlation in life or to make a parable out of a situation, I immediately thought, “how can I use that in my blog? How does that apply to parenting or raising children?”
I’ve had fun pondering it and here are some ideas I’ve come up with.
If you are raising children, you need to be serious about your responsibility in teaching and nurturing them. You need to ponder and consider how you can solidify your family’s love and cement in moral values. You need to find concrete things to do that will foster family love and weed out those materialistic things that continually pop up.
Instead of being passive, my neighbors were active in ridding their yard of weeds. They dug a foundation and then poured in a strong substance that weeds could not penetrate.
What is your family’s foundation built upon? Does it have a strong spiritual base? What are you pouring into your family that is solid? Do you accept your children’s individual uniqueness and weed out the tendency to compare them? Are you open minded and see the positive things about your children instead of labeling them as lazy or sloppy?
Are you cementing in family love by trying to be understanding and having fun traditions and saying, “I’m sorry”? Are you tucking them into bed at night and saying “I love you” (even though you’re thinking what a ---- they’ve been all day)? Are you teaching concrete moral values like being kind to others, sharing, and praying for each other?
I think you are most likely doing GREAT! Keep taking one day at a time, one child at a time. Enjoy the strong family you are creating.
Now help me think of more connections. What are your ideas?
You can't just pour in the wet, gravelly substance, wave a smoother over it a few times and expect to utilize it right away. It has to dry. Cement needs time to cure. And thus we see that it is the same with families. Parents can apply the substance of good parenting, but don't give up hope if efforts don't immediately cure a child of all her behavioral issues or inspire her to entrust her heart to her parent. Patiently apply a good mixture of sound parenting, caress the soul of your child in inspired ways, then stand back and wait for things to solidify. It will all come together in good time, in God's time.
ReplyDeleteOh! I love that you look at life as a series of lessons. I do too!
ReplyDeleteCement is commitment. That's all I have to say about that. I love your analogies!
I guess I'm different because I first thought of a negative analogy...
ReplyDeleteYou can't just cover up problems and hope they go away. The weeds must be pulled out, by the root. If you just cut off the leaves the weed comes back. You can't mask problems or sin, they must be dealt with and eliminated. Simply pouring concrete over weeds doesn't get rid of the weeds, it just covers them. It doesn't matter if it looks good on the outside, it's what is deep down in your heart that counts.
Thanks for always making me think!
Wow, Velika, that's awesome! That's what I love about analogies and parables-- they speak to everyone in a different way, and each way is very meaningful to the person who figures it out.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post! I really enjoyed that parable!
ReplyDelete