Trusting God
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| We wait for the storm to pass when we see all things more clearly, in God's light. |
Doesn’t it seem at times that
the days go by very quickly? One thing
after another leads to a full day of events.
After a while, if one looks back at the year, we wonder where it went. When looking to the past, one year seems to
blend with all the others. First, 5
years and then 10, and soon twenty years have passed and it becomes hard to
pinpoint the different events that made up all those seasons of our lives. We celebrate birthdays, weddings, and one day
when we least expect it, funerals are a part of our schedule as well. Life is but a breath King David of Israel once
said. When I first read that passage, I
was in my 20s and I thought that David must have been wrong. “I have a lifetime of ‘stuff’ ahead of me.” Now looking back I see that what David had said
was so true, life does pass too quickly.
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| Old Railroad Inn in Jackson, Minnesota |
I have come to realize that it
is not the years that a man lives that make him wise, it is in “how” he lives
that results in wisdom gained. I can
look back and see that I have made many mistakes in my life. Am I wise?
I cannot say for sure, I think it must be left for others to determine
that. I am reminded of my father who once
told me, “Making mistakes is a part of being human, but how you learn from those
same mistakes is the beginning of regret, or the road to wisdom.” I have to say that in some cases I have
regret in my life, while yet in others, they have been very much learning events
for me. Either way, most are ones that
I do not wish to repeat. Life though is
made up of these experiences that we go through.
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| Anne, Abby and Will at the Whitewater State Park |
Perhaps one never learns more
than when teaching your own children how to make right choices. Every parent wants for their child to not have
to go through the difficulties that they themselves have experienced, but in
some cases we have to let our children go and give them over to God, especially
when they are grown and our influence is least felt. As a child grows though, we hope to find that
what we have taught them, allows for more independence with every right choice
that they make. We then eventually find
that our children are a reflection of who we are, and that can bring with it
some regret and/or pride.
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| The home where I grew up. |
In our limited wisdom we at
times come to realize that some things are beyond our abilities, and we must
admit that we are helpless to effect change. The one medium that we as parents
do not do as often as we should, is to pray for our children. God though knows what is needed for each
child even before we as parents ask of him.
(Matthew 6:8) He does want us to
ask though. God hears our prayers and he
answers those requests in the time that ‘he’ determines that will help our
child the most. I encourage you as a
parent to be patient, and trust God to do his work. (Psalms 37:5)
