Year's End

What a year it has been.  There has been change after change after change that I have personally witnessed in my family, our community, our state and in me personally.  At this time of year, we often reflect on what we've done and how it has affected us to where we are now.  And well we should.  

We teach our children that every single choice made will chart the course for where they go and what they do.  Thinking about their choices is part of what will form our children into the kind of adults that serve, give and care in this world, when others are hurting, lost and lonely. Considering their choices now will enable them to become sensitive to others as they grow into adulthood.  

It's the little choices that they make now that will determine how they think, how they behave and what they do, tomorrow.  Proverbs 22:11 tells us, "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right."  It is up to us as parents to guide our children in their decisions, their choices; in all that they do.  We have no time to waste when it comes to our children. They are the next generation of leaders, who will be teachers, store owners, community service persons, preachers and pastors, or many other honorable pursuits and offices.  We must step in and step up to where our calling is: the parents that God has called us to be.  Helping our children to answer their call, when it comes, to be what God is calling them to be.

I am reflective over this year with a heart that considers: "What I have done as a parent to my children?"  Have I brought them to the place God wants them to be?  Have I done all I can do to continue in love, provoking them to "good works" daily?  Do I consistently honor God as I MOTHER my young children and carefully make choices exhibiting God's calling on my life?  Am I the example I would want them to be for my future 'grandchildren'?  Would I want my grandchildren taught what I am living or am I just living what I 'choose' and just 'getting by'?  Living just enough 'good' to get into the 'GATE'? 

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1. While we yet have our children, this is the season in which to PURPOSE to teach, to train, to honor and to obey God's call to be the parent we are called to be.