Doing what we can do

We are getting ready to begin a new topic for our meetings!

Spring is here and so many beautiful things are popping up, tulips, crocuses, day lilies...

.....and dandelions.

How to deal with Dandelions

Dandelions are just going to spring up to, so we may as well get used to them. Obviously they don't mean we did a poor job of planting tulips. Their seeds are just in the soil and, given the right conditions, they are just going to grow. So handle it. Sure, they will eventually take over the yard if they go unchallenged, but that is life. You can't keep them from growing. They are just going to happen, and after all, they aren't that unattractive.

Our family has collected what seems like a few billion books on topics such as gardening. The above commentary did NOT come from any book on gardening we have seen. Of course, I just made it up.

On the contrary, books focused on having an attractive garden give all kinds of methods for preventing the propagation of weeds...from being selective about seeds, using herbicides, or just bending over and yanking the things out.

However, even though children are infinitely more important and valuable than gardens, we have seen many parenting books and articles which espouse this exact kind of logic.

Yes, just as we expect weeds in our gardens, we are to expect sin in our children. This is biblical, and many books on parenting will admit this. However, many parenting experts will actually redefine sin in children (especially manifested in attitudes) so that it becomes a necessary phase through which children must be permitted to pass. And many offer parents useless "comfort" that there is little they can do except pray and wait for their child to come around eventually.

This controversy is not a new one. Listen to this voice from the 1800's on this subject.

I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I know also that God says expressly, "Train up a child in the way he should go," and that He never laid a command on man which He would not give man grace to perform. And I know, too, that our duty is not to stand still and dispute, but to go forward and obey. It is just in the going forward that God will meet us. The path of obedience is the way in which He gives the blessing. We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana, to fill the water-pots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.

In the coming weeks, Lord willing, we will be looking at a very encouraging article entitled "The Duties of Parents." Our goal will simply be to find out what we can do. We wish to be faithful mothers, grandmothers, and future mothers, or if not, we just wish to be a christian encouragement to those who are.

Mothers face many day to day challenges that leave us frustrated and puzzled. These experiences are God's way of drawing us to rely on him more and more. But many of these situations can be minimized or simplified if we reform our minds in God's Word. Our enemy would have us throw our hands up in desperation and just go into coping mode. Again, listen to the words of this brother who has gone before.

And now, reader, in conclusion, let me once more press upon you the necessity and importance of using every single means in your power, if you would train children for heaven.

I know well that God is a sovereign God, and doeth all things according to the counsel of His own will. I know that Rehoboam was the son of Solomon, and Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, and that you do not always see godly parents having a godly seed. But I know also that God is a God who works by means, and sure am I, if you make light of such means as I have mentioned, your children are not likely to turn out well.

Fathers and mothers ... you may send them to the best of schools, and give them Bibles and Prayer Books, and fill them with head knowledge:— but if all this time there is no regular training at home, I tell you plainly, I fear it will go hard in the end with your children's souls. Home is the place where habits are formed; — home is the place where the foundations of character are laid; — home gives the bias to our tastes, and likings, and opinions. See then, I pray you, that there be careful training at home.

May we each trust that the Lord will work in the lives of our children, and may we each be dilligent to do what we can do.