about their futures

Do you know of Marlboro Man from The Pioneer Woman blog?  Come on now!  You know you think he's cute!

FYI, My husband has just as nice a hiney, but I'm not funny enough or brave enough to post it as a permanent fixture on my blog.  Good grief!

Yeah.  I know.  That's why she's famous and I'm not.

Although, I do recall husband telling me that I can write anything I want on my blog.  He's got nothing to hide.  That's a direct quote.  He never reads blogs by the way--even this one.  He can't be bothered.

Anyhow, I was clicking around on the Compassion International blog and saw that Marlboro Man went as a sponsored blogger to the Dominican Republic in 2008.  Ree, his wife, was the one invited, but the family decided to ask if her husband could go--with their two daughters--instead.  Maybe Ree still had an infant at home?

I wanted to ask you to read one of his posts from the trip.  It highlights something I've learned through our underemployment journey here in the States.

Faith is everything.

Discounting it in our childrearing will prove costly.  We can't crowd it out with soccer, enrichment classes, playdates, gym time, etc.

Again I say.....faith is everything!  Money does matter, but sometimes a more rugged faith emerges in its absence.  Riches are in the heart, not the bank.  It is very parental to worry about how our children will support themselves one day.  But spiritual survival?  Are we giving that more time and energy?

We need to intentionally spend time together as a family to raise spiritually strong children--praying together, praising our Lord together, confessing our sins together, seeking God's will together, reading God's word together.


Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

What if they (our grown children) lose a spouse to cancer, or a child to a car accident in the driveway?  What if their entire family perishes in a car accident, leaving them alone?  What if they are asked by God to raise a severely disabled child?  What if they suffer from infertility, or have a miscarriage, or experience a stillbirth, or SIDS?  What if they lose everything in a midwestern tornado?   Or a California fire?  Or a Gulf Coast hurricane?  Or their house in a recession?  What if they fall and suffer some brain damage--memory loss, speech impairment?

The only thing we can be certain of about their futures is this:

They will know pain.

We have to raise our children to flourish spiritually, first and foremost.  And then financially and otherwise.  The next time a great opportunity arises that takes away family time (even if it's a church function), we need to remember our core value.

Faith

Again, here is that post, A Tale of Two Houses.  Read it to remember why faith is everything.