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Today's
Meditation:
I know many, many parents who fall into this
trap. Somehow, they seem to completely miss the fun
and joy and glory of being parents, of having these new
lives to care for, to watch as they grow, to learn with
and from. Parents tend to take the children for
granted, or view them as responsibilities rather than
gifts, or try to control them too much and get angry and
frustrated when their efforts at control don't always
work.
How many people do you know who would talk about "the
glory of parenthood"? How many celebrate their
opportunities to be parents each day? And how many
parents focus more on the bills than on the child's
learning how to speak? How many focus more on the
one time the child disobeyed than on the ten times the
child did just what he or she was asked to do?
And if you're not a parent, how many other situations are
you in, in which you've stopped recognizing your
privileges and honors? I'm a teacher, and I need to
remind myself constantly that it's a great privilege to be
able to spend time with so many young people. The
best waitress I ever knew looked at her job as an
opportunity to serve people and to get to know them,
too. There's a certain glory to having the privilege
of serving other people, but it's something that we do
have to remind ourselves about.
Let's not get so busy with the minutiae of our jobs that
we forget the glory of serving others. Let's not get
so busy with the bills and the dinners and washing the
clothes that we forget just how amazing it is to be able
to be a parent. If we can keep this in mind, both
our parenthood and our children's childhoods will be
improved greatly, and wonderful memories will be created
every single day.
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Questions to
consider:
What are some of the glorious elements of
parenthood? What makes them glorious?
How might you stay aware of the more wonderful parts of
parenthood, or of the work that you do, or of other
relationships that you have?
What can we do to shift our focus when we get too busy?
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