Making Your Home a Greenhouse
Training children in the art of establishing and nurturing healthy relationships is not easy. But it is a primary function of a Godly home. This is the stuff that success in real life is dependent upon. Teach them now and their future will be brighter, easier, and more fruitful.
Your home is like a greenhouse of newly-forming relationships. Your children relate to you, to your husband, to each other - all right within your four walls. So consider these simple steps that they must master:
1. They need to plant good seed. Learning to share kind words, practice generosity, and esteem one another's strengths and talents all are top-grade seed that will bear an abundant harvest of good fruit in years to come. This is a process since we don't seem to automatically plant good seed only - we plant all kinds of weeds if we are not careful. But with practice, we can readily discern good seed from bad seed. You will become seed experts and so will they!
2. Regular weeding is essential for optimum growth because there will be some bad seed planted, not only by them but by others. There will be daily lessons of repentance and forgiveness. Opportunities abound (unless my home is radically different from yours) for practicing Biblical principles related to offenses - both the giving and receiving of offenses. Learning how to humble themselves and seek the Lord for change is a prerequisite for success in any relationship. Now is the time to put those principles into place, before the weeds are deep-rooted. If you've done any gardening, you know that spring weeding is a whole lot better than mid-summer weeding! So get to it now.
3. Watering and nurturing is fundamental to growth of young plants; investing time and energy is fundamental to relationships. Teach them to invest in one another by attending a sibling's music performance or athletic competition, sharing words of appreciation at a birthday gathering, making a card just to say "You are special because...", or just spending an evening together playing a game or watching a movie. A relationship that started with good seed and was carefully weeded will not survive the drought season without ongoing nurturing.
Family relationships are intended to be life-long. Friends will come and go, but a sibling is a brother or sister for life. They are the ones with whom we share weddings and birth celebrations; they weep with us in times of loss. Holidays often find us together, telling stories and recalling happy days gone by. What a treasure these relationships should be!
So invest now, mom. Take time to instruct, train, and discipline. The fruit will remain for years to come.
Your home is like a greenhouse of newly-forming relationships. Your children relate to you, to your husband, to each other - all right within your four walls. So consider these simple steps that they must master:
1. They need to plant good seed. Learning to share kind words, practice generosity, and esteem one another's strengths and talents all are top-grade seed that will bear an abundant harvest of good fruit in years to come. This is a process since we don't seem to automatically plant good seed only - we plant all kinds of weeds if we are not careful. But with practice, we can readily discern good seed from bad seed. You will become seed experts and so will they!
2. Regular weeding is essential for optimum growth because there will be some bad seed planted, not only by them but by others. There will be daily lessons of repentance and forgiveness. Opportunities abound (unless my home is radically different from yours) for practicing Biblical principles related to offenses - both the giving and receiving of offenses. Learning how to humble themselves and seek the Lord for change is a prerequisite for success in any relationship. Now is the time to put those principles into place, before the weeds are deep-rooted. If you've done any gardening, you know that spring weeding is a whole lot better than mid-summer weeding! So get to it now.
3. Watering and nurturing is fundamental to growth of young plants; investing time and energy is fundamental to relationships. Teach them to invest in one another by attending a sibling's music performance or athletic competition, sharing words of appreciation at a birthday gathering, making a card just to say "You are special because...", or just spending an evening together playing a game or watching a movie. A relationship that started with good seed and was carefully weeded will not survive the drought season without ongoing nurturing.
Family relationships are intended to be life-long. Friends will come and go, but a sibling is a brother or sister for life. They are the ones with whom we share weddings and birth celebrations; they weep with us in times of loss. Holidays often find us together, telling stories and recalling happy days gone by. What a treasure these relationships should be!
So invest now, mom. Take time to instruct, train, and discipline. The fruit will remain for years to come.
posted by Darlene Sinclair at
3:15 PM
3 Comments:
"Friends will come and go, but a sibling is a brother or sister for life."
This is a statement that has long been repeated in our home and one that has been lived out as well. Great post. Great reminder that we need to continue to pull those weeds when they are tiny and easier to get out.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Oh, and congratulations on the part!
Yes, maam!
This encourages my work as I "garden" :). When it's all said and done, I hope I leave my children the gift of one another.
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