Friday, November 20, 2009

Children as a Blessing

Whenever anyone says that children are a blessing so many automatically assume that you are talking about a new baby. It is so easy to see a new pregnancy as a blessing or a newborn as a blessing. It is so easy to see them as a blessing when they are learning how to smile at you, reaching for your face or learning to give you kisses....
We don't continue to think that children are a blessing when they are two and pulling everything out of the cupboards or when they have climbed onto the kitchen table and are throwing everything off and watching it all break. Or when a four year old is coloring on the walls because he loves to draw and wants to help make your home beautiful. Or when your six year old has stolen and hidden your favorite candy bars to eat later that night and will soon be throwing all of it up.....
That is the farthest I have gotten in raising my children but I can imagine the preteen that will not stop talking about things you could care less about and don't even understand what they are saying or the teenager that will never talk to you because you annoy them......
They are blessings, given from God..... if we would truly believe that and treat them that way maybe they would react differently... we don't tell them they are blessings and they are the ones that need to know. I have been telling my children on at least a daily basis that they are blessings, that God gave them to me to take care of and train them up to be great men of God... this has changed their attitude because even at six my little boy wants to be better because he knows that it is for a reason! Each child has been added to my care because God has a purpose for them and for me, I have the responsibility to raise them as a gift... a gift held with my hands wide open because they will be returned to their Maker...