The Children

If there's one thing I strongly believe, it's that “you reap what you sow.” It's Bible. It's truth. And I'm also grateful that when you've sewn bad seed, you can sew good after to recover. I could apologize to my parents forever for being such a rotten child and it wouldn't make up for it.

Do you remember the moment you realized the way you behaved as a child could be the way your own children behaved? That struck fear in my heart! At that point I decided that I needed to be a better person. I needed them to be better people.

My children are not perfect by a long shot, but they are definitely better children than I ever was. Sometimes I get irritated with how they're behaving and often times I have to look in the mirror. “...provoke not your children to wrath,” Ephesians 6:4 says. 

We're a very close family. One of the reasons is that we make time for each other. We make one night a week just for us. Anybody who knows us can tell you, it's homemade pizza at the Martin's when that happens. Dinner together at the table is every day of the week except that one.  We get together on the couch then.

Before we moved to Longview, people would ask us how the kids are with the move. They are fine with it. Excited about it in fact. Not that they won't miss their friends, but we, as a family, will still be together.

I read stories with them before bed up until the last few years. Each of them have a goodnight ritual with me now that we rarely miss. We tell each other we love one another at least daily. Hugs abound. In church, we sit together. Sometimes they playfully fight over who sits next to me or who gets to hold my hand.

It overwhelms me sometimes when I see how kind they are to others, when they volunteer in the community, or when they sing in the choir at church.

Blessed beyond measure,

Zoe