Taking It Up a Notch

"From the Archives" will be tomorrow instead of today. God birthed a different post for Tuesday, and "just in case" someone else out there needs to hear it, here it is--and I hope it makes sense. :)

A sobering thought just struck me: We don't just live our lives "with" our children and grandchildren; we live them "before" them.

With every response we teach them more powerfully than words ever could, how to be, and what is important.

Is what I want to teach them being adequately represented by my words and actions? Not really.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I think that much good is lived out before them, but there is something I need to be better at, and that is demonstrating how much I love them by the time and focused attention I give them, individually and as a group.

I have, in my busyness, fallen into the trap of "being with" them often, cooking wonderfully hospitable meals and creating a place of welcome, but not so often "doing with."

I think that is the longing of every child's heart of the adults in their lives.

I want to do better at this. I want to teach them by my attention and time (while they still want it!) that they are precious and important.

I want to know them more intimately and share the adventure of life with them more fully, while I can.

There will be times when I am just exhausted; I am not just a grandmother, after all. But that role can be taken up a notch and I want to do better at it.

For all the children in our lives, who need to be loved with all of our hearts and energy, I pray that God will teach us how to love well.

Comments

Marilyn said…
I'm glad you were moved to write this.
"Dazzle them less, connect with them more."
That is what sticks, I think.
That is how people feel esteemed.
6:50 AM
Julie said…
We were blessed to have my husbands mother living right next door to us when the boys were little. She knew how to spend time with them. If they went over she would stop whatever she was doing and do something with them. Many a dinners were later than planned as she could be found playing with them outside in their tree fort even in her seventies. What a legacy she gave our sons as a Godly woman and grandmother.
7:39 AM
Belinda said…
Wow, what inspiration for me. Thank you ladies. :) I want to be in a tree fort in my seventies, but mind you, my grandchildren will be in their late teens and 20's by then, so maybe I'd better start now. :)I love that the dinner was late for that reason! :)
8:19 AM
Ann Voskamp @Holy Experience said…
You bless this mother's heart... encourage me to love more, better, deeply....

Thank you, friend...

All's grace,
Ann
9:27 PM
Belinda said…
Dear Ann,
I see the photos of your weekend rambles in the woods, and know that you have it right!

Love to you.
10:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Voyage

Image
Note from Belinda: I read this prayer yesterday and again today--and then I read it to Susan after cell group, when we were having our "second cup" of decaff coffee together. I knew that she'd love it. She has a framed picture on her office wall of a little blond haired girl in a sail boat on a stormy sea. A fatherly sailor,with a weather beaten face; in a gray sou'wester, holds her close, as he capably mans the tiller. This prayer reminds me of that picture and influenced what I wrote earlier today, when I used the metaphor of ebbing waves to describe a lack of consistency and my desire to crash over the sandbar into the peaceful pool on the other side.  ( Susan sent me a link to the painting, which was done by American impressionist Robert Reid in 1888.  It hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in NYC.) Be bless ed by the beauty of this prayer. OH LORD OF THE OCEANS, My little bark sails on a restless sea, Grant that Jesus may sit at the
Read more

Ere Zij God--Glory to God in the Highest! A Dutch Carol

Image
By Belinda This beautiful Dutch carol was shared today by a friend of Dutch ancestry, on Facebook. I had never heard it before but absolutely loved it. It moved me deeply, especially at the end after the crowd leaves the church and then breaks into spontaneous singing again around a brazier, with the sound of chiming church bells in the background. Listen to it with headphones or a good speaker to get the full effect of the harmonies. And happy first Sunday in Advent!
Read more

Samson Beaver and his Family

Image
I first posted this in 2009, a little show and tell about one of my favourite photographs. Back then it hung on a wall, but now it's in my bathroom where I see it every morning! I'd forgotten the history behind the story, researched when I first posted this and thought that current readers might enjoy it--a story from a time when this land was still being discovered, not so very long ago. This photograph was taken by Mary Schaffer; artist, photographer, writer and naturalist, in 1907. It is of a Stoney Indian named Samson Beaver, with his wife Leah and daughter, Frances Louise. I bought the photo on a postcard, on a trip to British Columbia and it hangs framed, on the wall I face when sitting at my laptop. I love it. Don't you just feel as if you could gather Frances Louise up in your arms and cuddle her? I get a deep sense of peace and happiness when I look at this family, sitting in the grass of a long ago fall. They are dressed in their best, beautiful c
Read more