Teaching life's lesson

What is the most important thing we should teach our children?

Would it be the value of hard work? After all, a job is the reflection of the person who does the work.

Would it be knowledge, or better, the quest for knowledge? We can't possibly teach our children all there is to know in the world, but we can instill in them the desire to want to know.

Would it be compassion? From compassion, service to others and the community follows. Would it be tolerance and understanding? Could wars be forgotten if all the world developed a tolerance for the ideas and beliefs of others?

What is the most important thing to teach?

Would it be a love of self?
Would it be a love for family?
Would it be a love for others, or do all of these flow naturally from a love for God?

Should we tell them to, in some way, every day, make the world a little better than it was the day before? Should we teach them to be polite, kind, generous, helpfu? Are those the lessons we should stress?

There is no manual on how to raise children. Our children will learn about life, not from a book or a teacher or a preacher. They'll learn about life by watching us. 

The greatest lesson we can give our children is ourselves. 
They watch us and they learn. They watch our reaction to conflict, and learn to either be compassionate or to hate. They watch us in the community and learn to either give or take. They watch us when we worship and when we don't. They watch us in our truths and in our lies.

We are our children's great lesson.
What lesson is your life teaching?

Photo credit: by Jenny Mae as part of a 4-H project on friendship.

Not what I expected

 
Everyone said the recovery from shoulder surgery would hurt. 
Everyone. 

Not just some. Not a few. Not even most. 
Nope, everyone. 

So, why am I so surprised that after five weeks, my shoulder still hurts and therapy makes me what to throw up? I thought it'd be different.

I thought it would be different ...... for me. After all, I've run half marathons; surely it will be different. I've taken care of myself for 15 years, alone and independent; surely it will be different. I raised two kids through college nearly by myself; surely it will be different. Bring it on because I'm ready. 

This is not what I expected. 

And, because it isn't, I've had to change what I think, change how I do things, change how I look at the world and how I interact with it. 

 The unexpected will do that to you. 

With my right arm unusable, I've learned to trust my left to carry the load. I didn't think it was up for it when I first began. It was weak, awkward. I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Yet, when I learned to rely on it, something happened. It came through for me. Sure, it wasn't good at first, but I'd never asked it to wash dishes alone before. After learning what didn't work, we soon figured out what did. And then we did it again, then again, with lots of tasks and challenges. 

And, so it is with the people in our lives. We learn to expect what we expect without ever imagining that it might be different... that life might be different. 

Start looking at life differently. You might just find it's not what you expected; it's better. 

Read more at:  http://likemylife.homestead.com/creamoftartar.html

Photo credit: Heroes are made every day when we do what isn't expected; photo by JudyMae @ Carmi

What would you say to her?

"To give life a meaning,
one must have a purpose
larger than one's self."

~Will Durant

"I need to learn to live life to the fullest, so I need your help to give me things I should and should not do while living life."

I stared at this new email message in my LikeMyLife.com in-box.

Nothing.
I had no words of inspiration for this woman, this searching soul, who needed my help, my guidance. Nothing.

Why couldn't I answer her? For heaven's sake, I publish an inspirational website. If you google "living life to the fullest," my LikeMyLife.com website is ranked #1 out of 700,000 websites. I should know something about this.

Maybe I worry that what works for me won't work for her, or what I had to go through in living a full life is too much to ask of someone else. 

Maybe until this moment, I really haven't believed I was living my life to the fullest. Certainly, I was living my life at a dead run...too tired to care if it was "fullest" as long as it was "full." Still, there have to be some shared experiences we can all agree define fullness.

I try to have more good days than bad, more tears from happy moments than sad, more kind than hateful actions in a day, each day. But is that life at its "fullest?"

I know I soak myself in my children's interests and activities. I work passionately at causes I believe in, maybe too passionately at times. I fret when those who have refuse to give to those who don't have. But is that life at its "fullest?"

I know what My Lord asks of me and though I do many of those things right, I sometimes do things wrong. Am I still living life to the fullest when I fail to live life righteously?

So, tell me, what would you tell this woman? Really, I want you to comment here on the blog and tell me. She's asking you what she should do and not do in her life. What will you tell her?

I know my "ahhhhh" moment won't be the same as yours or as hers, but maybe, between you and you and you and me, we can inspire this young woman along a path of finding joy in the journey we call life.

Photo credit: Not sure who took this photo at Jen's wedding, but little Lily certainly seems to be living to the fullest.

I have finished the race

I know, I know. You've all wondered where I've been and how I could marry off a daughter and take a son to college without a single word on the blog. Well, I've been thinking. And, thinking. And, thinking.

What does one say when someone who has lived her life solely for her children finds herself without a child in the house?  My children are my life. Their activities alone filled my social calendar. They have been my confidants; I their cheerleader. They have been my companion; I their buyer of track shoes. They wiped my tears as I wiped theirs.

On August 14, my daughter, Jenny, married the love of her life, Scott. On August 19, I took my son, Wil to college --- and left him (or he left me may be more appropriate).

So what do I say?
"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

There were times over the years I wanted to give up, give in. You've been there, too, I know. Life is hard, too hard, at times. There is never enough money. Anger robs us of joy. Evil sways us to be ugly to others. It seems that as soon as one challenge is met, another is waiting to take its place.

I didn't cry at Jenny's wedding because I finished the race. I saw parenthood through to the end when I handed her over to someone else whose job it now is to care for her. (He has to buy her track shoes now.) This is the moment I worked so hard for all those years of raising her.

I didn't cry when I left Wil. Okay, I did, but not when I left. I cried when I kept trying to help him (get the room organized and get the computer working and get the electronics hooked up) and he didn't want me to. He was ready for me to leave so he could do for himself what I kept trying to do for him.

He knew what I needed to learn. I had finished the race ... whether I knew it yet or not.

He had become the young man I raised him to be.
He knew it. I didn't until that moment he said, "I can do that when you're gone."

I found this story on the Trinity United Reformed Church of Visalia, Calif. website.

It was 7 p.m. on October 20th, 1968. Only a few spectators remained in the Mexico City Olympic Stadium. The winner of the 26 mile marathon had crossed the finish line more than an hour ago, and now, the last of the marathon runners were across the finish line and leaving the track. As the last few spectators began to leave, those sitting by the entrance suddenly heard the sound of sirens. One last runner appeared at the entrance. The man, whose leg was bloody and bandaged, was wearing the colors of Tanzania. The Tanzanian runner, experiencing intense pain, hobbled around the 400 meter track in the stadium, and the few remaining spectators rose and applauded him as though he was the winner. After crossing the finish line he slowly walked off the field without turning to the cheering spectators. In view of his injury, and having no chance of winning any medal, a curious spectator asked him why he did not quit the race. The Tanzanian runner replied, "My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race, but sent me 7000 miles to finish it."

So, don't worry that I'm sad. I'm celebrating my victory lap.

Photo credit: Who knows. Whoever had the camera at that moment during the wedding.