1. The future belongs to those who will work for it.
2. The best thing you can spend on your children is time.
3. The only thing left after fire is the stuff you gave away. –Nan Snider
4. Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.
5. A ship is safe in the harbor, but that isn’t what ships were built for.
The first Don’t Walk sign began operation on this date in 1952. 🙂
Why not Date?
Of course, God must have had some reason for causing us to be male and female, yet also programming us to hesitate, to want to do it right, to hate divorce just as He does. What gives?
God set up the whole marriage relationship as a picture, a sort of parable, of perfection in relationship. You have to admit, when male/female relationships are going right, it can be heavenly, right? And when it all goes south, well . . .
Facts are, God is all about loving relationship. He says He IS love. He is a relationship. Love is everything. Love is all you need. And almost every problem on earth is a relationship problem.
Marriage is so important to God. He set up everything in His kingdom with the idea in mind of it being like a marriage. (Or maybe marriage is like His kingdom?) In fact, in all of His creation, out of all the things He created, there was only one thing He said was not good: That man should be alone, single. Man could never picture Heavenly things if He had no counterpart, no one to love, no one to become one with and be fruitful with.
But what is dating? Is it a loving thing? Or is it using someone just to have a good time? Or is it pretending to be married? Are we fools?
The Bible speaks of only two types of relationships between unmarried, non-familial men and women. One is betrothal. The other is over-anxious, questionable men hanging around loose women.
Guess which one we practice these days?
Humans have been practicing dating on a large scale for around, 50 to 75 years. Before that, no one dated. Some snuck out, but that was sneaking out; it wasn’t dating.
The very idea of two unmarried people spending any time together, alone, was unthinkable to most people, once upon a time.
Why? At least for three reasons.
And there was a time, not so long ago, when all people heeded this universal idea, whether they liked it or not. While there always have been a few out-of-wedlock babies, they were few, just enough to soften the blow of infertility for other people. And people hid the trouble as much as possible. And they were regretful.
Why is marriage universal?
A better question might be, why did God build this program into all people? It is because His Son is a Bridegroom, waiting for a pure bride.
A smile is a funny thing. All it is, is a couple of muscles pulling the corners of the mouth up. Yet it can mean the difference between life and death, if a surgeon smiles. It can mean the difference between marriage and rejection if a girlfriend smiles. When a mother smiles, a child learns that all is well.
Do you smile? I think sometimes I do not smile enough. I’ve accidentally caught myself in my relaxed, normal look and it is not a smiley face surprising me from some unexpected mirror. Even though I’ve told myself many a time that I look better with a smile, I revert to autopilot and it’s not a pretty sight.
They say if you smile, then the world will smile with you. I think someone was hoping when that motto came about. Still, the good that usually comes with a smile makes people more eager to see you if you’re wearing one.
Sometimes I think about the things I say with a frown, and wonder what the results would be if I smiled, instead. You know the times when someone needs discipline or things don’t go the right way. What would happen if I said, “Dear, you must go to your room, now,” with a smile instead of a frown? At first the child surely would think I was either heartless or joking, but what if it were my normal practice to smile when I disciplined a child? Would the child better understand the love that backs the discipline? I don’t know.
What if when someone were mean to me, instead of crying, I could somehow manage a smile? What if I said, “That co-worker deliberately ignored my presence, today,” with a smile instead of a frown? Those who care about me would probably think I had gone crazy, but only because it is not the norm for me. But what if it were?
I know one thing: When I deliberately smile, when I think it’s not the norm but I smile anyway, I feel better. What if I’m not happy? So what?
I’ll tell you what: If I smile, I become happier, that’s what.
God has smiled on us all. Why shouldn’t we smile?
What then are we to make of suffering?
If we are The Called, in Christ Jesus, everything that happens to us is for some higher purpose, even when life DOES go our way. We can know for sure that the pain of suffering unfair treatment, like all other things, works for good. The Scriptures promise this.
I pray these blessings on you all. They are the whole reason He came, anyway. Right?
In the summer, we still teach our children. You know we teach them all the time, right?
One summer, we were all out in the garden learning about how hard carrots can be to pull up. It was fun, though, a sort of tug-o-war between children and carrots, with Mom along to man the shovel if the tops broke off.
So many Bible lessons happen in the garden. We constantly show them how well the weeded plants grow, compared to the weedy ones. They know a beet seedling from a pigweed seedling, although they so resemble each other.
And the buckets of rocks!
They have learned to love harvesting their own snacks straight from the garden, like a small, perfectly sun-ripened tomato, rubbed until shiny and popped into the mouth to dribble everywhere while quenching thirst. They know a small packet of seeds can make all those jars of wonderful food in the basement.
The most important lessons the garden teaches, though, is that when Mom says you have to do something, whether you like it or not, you have to do it. This lesson, in a grown child and transferred to other authorities, can protect job security.
In a young child, it can save a life or limb.
Most dangers in life are unexpected. We can teach endlessly and still miss the lesson that will be needed tomorrow. This was the case, one day.
My son, another fearless one, about age twelve, had managed to extract one carrot that housed a curiously beautiful spider in its stems. He brought it to me to see its beauty and I’m sure my eyes widened.
“Drop it!” I ordered.
He looked at me, saw my face matched my tone, and obeyed. Today I still think about it. He was happy with his find, happy in his boldness, and probably happy in anticipation of sharing and of my praise. What a big deal to older brother, to turn loose of this happiness! But he did it.
And that day, the garden yielded up the lessons of the black widow spider. God’s protection, parents’ obligation to protect children, children’s obligation to obey, and the continuing obligation for all to “FEAR NOT!”—all those lessons and more came from our garden that day.
And I am not afraid, but I still shudder. His right hand was two inches from destruction.
But God can fit inside two inches.
Last story in this series here!
Long ago—oh, so long ago—we set out, trembling but sure, with little but our dear children and sheer determination, to home school.
Our children had endured unhappy experiences where they were, we had tired of the huge expense of a private education that produced unhappiness, and we imagined we could do at least as well as the teachers we had met.
Not much going for us? Well, we thought we had the world by the tail.
We did have it by the tail.
One of our first home-school acquisitions, a black Lab puppy, soon taught us some lessons about the joy of life. Before he grew out of the puppy stage, he had been, as the joke says, “like a Slinky—not really good for much, but it’s fun to watch him fall down.” As a Retriever, he totally loved retrieving, but never did really learn also to relinquish the retrieved thing. Still, if he brought the pop fly balls from wa-a-ay outfield, all slobbery, and we had to tussle them out of his mouth, it saved time and endless running for us and provided him no end of joy and exercise.
As our schedule solidified and we found more time for relaxation during schooling, we chose a particularly crisp, sunny day for a simple picnic. Just sandwiches, granola bars, and juice in sippy cups, each one making his own lunch, was all we wanted—that and a blanket outdoors. Because our year-old pup relished people food, we took along his dish, a bit of dog food, a dog biscuit, and some “fetch toys”. Loading all this into our wheelbarrow, we rolled out to the backside of our seven acres for a lazy hour of rejuvenation.
As we ate and tossed toys for our pup, we played silly games, joking and teasing a lot. Pup managed to steal half a sandwich from the youngest, which I replenished with half of mine. Oh, the laughter of that afternoon!
About a month later, we unearthed time for our second, ever, home-school picnic. Out came the same wheelbarrow, the same red blanket, the same toys, the same lunch bags….
Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, our Lab appeared, running round and round the wheelbarrow, barking all the way. We laughed at him and his excitement. Could he be anticipating what our actions implied? Could he be excited about going on another picnic?
He scooped up his food dish in his teeth and ran a couple of circles around us, galloped off to the backside of the seven acres to deposit it, then rushed back barking all the way to hurry us along. That’s when we were certain of it: he actually remembered the fun of a month ago and seemingly could not wait for a replay.
Still laughing, more in wonder than amusement, we hurried as best we could while he continued barking.
What a marvel that a dog could understand family togetherness better than the world can!
The next hour filled with creating more happy memories.
But we guarded the sandwiches better.
Home's Cool! 