Humor

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"I hope you have kids someday who do to you what you've done to ME."

Whose parents haven't lovingly bestowed this nugget of vengeance upon their children at one time or another? Of course, my own mother never did, because I was always the perfect kid. Really. I was. Stop laughing.

How gratifying it is for parents to lead their children steadfastly through the years, teaching them how to dress, how to slow dance, how to cook. And since Proverbs 22:15 warns us that "foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child," it is imperative for parents to teach kids the extremely important things -- like, how NOT to shove Fruit Loops in their nose, how NOT to shove sandwiches into the VCR, how NOT to shove their younger siblings off the roof, etc., so that when they reach adulthood and go out into the real world, they won't flounder around like a, well, ... a flounder. And then, the payoff ...

They turn on you. Not all of them, but there's the occasional rogue kid who reaches that stage where he (or she) thinks that all he knows is all there IS to know. Suddenly, Mom and Dad appear to him to be dumber than a box of rocks, and the kid is very much wiser in his own eyes. And the Mom/Dad wonder, "where did I go wrong?"

Now I haven't raised kids, but if I had, I'm sure they'd be just as perfect as I was. Stop laughing. But I have had the occasional hand in the lives of stepsons and grandkids (which is why they're all in San Quentin). But seriously, any rogue behavior on their part is entirely NOT the fault of me and my equally-perfect husband. Some kids are simply prone to outbursts of self-will and disobedience.

Which leads me directly to the observation -- How many times in my mature, wise, adult life have I ever been roguishly disobedient to my Father God? How many times has He felt pain because of my rejection of His wisdom and guidance in favor of my own "wise" choices? How often has He been grieved by my not bothering to consult Him about anything? So as our kids flounder in their independent living, and eventually recognize that we're not that dumb after all -- so do I learn that my own ways are nowhere as good as His. And I'm grateful for, and learn from, His patience with me. His compassions never fail, they're new every morning {Lamentations 3:22}.

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