Pass It On

I am grateful for the way I was raised.
I am grateful for my mom & my dad.
I am grateful for the church of my childhood.
I want to be diligent to pass on the godly heritage I have been handed.

A big thing I am grateful for, when I look back at the way my mom mothered is,
her eternal perspective which was so visible in day to day life.
My mom didn't usually let things of little consequence bother her.

She didn't get all mad & stressed out if the house was messy.
There are things more important.
Not to say she just neglected the house.
She had a lot of housework that had to be done.
And, she taught us to contribute to the running of the household
by pitching in with the work.
But, life will still go on if the floors don't get mopped.

She cooked food from scratch & tried to give us healthy food to eat.
But, she didn't get her panties into a bunch about us eating junk food sometimes.
It's okay.  It is not the end of the world.
Not to say she didn't care.  She worked hard to feed us well on a tight budget.
And, she generally didn't buy junk food or prepared food.
(I've don't think I've ever tried hamburger helper or rice-o-roni
or whatever that's called.
I had no idea what a pop tart tasted like
until a friend "forced" me to try one when I was in my 20's.)

She has spent most of her days, for a good part of her life,
staying home with her children, teaching them.
This is not to say she has had no social life.
She is a very outgoing person & has many friends.
But, through a lot of my childhood, I remember her encouraging friends
& offering counsel to them over the phone.
While she nursed her young babe.
Or while she helped her older children solve math problems.
She spent her days caring about people.  In her family & out.

She opens her home for hospitality,
in order to love, be generous & enjoy fellowship.
Not as a way to show off her homemaking skills.
People are invited into the home, whether it is clean or not.
People are welcomed to the table,
whether the food is plain or whether is is fancy.

She treats her children as blessings & not burdens.

I want to pass this on in my own household.
I want my kids to be able to see what matters most to me.
And, I want that to be Jesus.
I don't want to be a woman who gets snappy when
the house is a mess.
Who is embarrassed when the dinner is plain.
Who neglects to listen & listen well,
because I am always harried.
I don't want the "to do list" to dictate.
I want a home that is others oriented.
I want to keep my eyes on the main thing.
Loving Jesus & showing that in the way I love others.

Something I think my dad taught me well, in his fathering is,
that sin is sin & why.
I remember the deep dread of getting in trouble with dad.

Not because he yelled at me.  He didn't.
Not because he beat me.  He didn't.

There was usually a simple question involved.
Something like, "Why did you do _______?"
Then there would be a painful silence that seemed to last forever.
I knew that answering "just because" or "I don't know" were not okay answers.

My dad wanted me to face my sin head on.
I didn't just get scolded & sent to my room to forget about it.
He wanted me to ponder what I had done.
To learn to see wrong as wrong.
He gave much opportunity for my conscience to grow sharp.
It wasn't okay to make excuses or justifications for wrong behavior.
He tried to teach me to see my sin how God sees it-
grievous.
"Getting in trouble" with Dad was so dreaded because
I went away feeling truly convicted for my sin.
Internal pain doesn't just go away with time.
It brings you to Jesus, having to confess before Him.
And be restored once again.
"The Law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ."

I want to teach my kids what God has to say about things.
I don't want them to just learn "house rules".
I want them to learn to obey their parents.
But, I want them to learn to obey God, most of all.
I want my kids to have a godly fear of being out of fellowship with God.
I want to teach them to be honest about their sin,
so they can rightly confess it to God.


*This post is part of a little blog carnival "Passing on the Legacy"
Check out more posts on the subject at these blogs


EatSleepandRun
Joyful Domesticity
Mama Mia McMasters
Joyful Hearts and Faces
Lady Sybil
P. Andrew Sandlin
Nothing Much