Plant And Water

Greetings Gang,

Pat and I think you will be shocked by what we are planning to do. Several situations have come up recently that we believe are prompting us to try and contribute something beneficial to the lives of our children and their families (we know a lot of money would help, but “silver and gold have we none,” just a few bucks). It will also, we believe, promote more and different communication that might be fun to do. Besides, we need something to do.

The first situation was during a bible study where the idea of always being responsible for our families was brought up. The person teaching was adamant about parents’ responsibility to “Tend the Garden” of their family; a responsibility that never ends. Why the serpent was allowed in the Garden of Eden in the first place, was in God’s plan of free will, and since then he has been running in and out of just about every family garden. So, the idea expressed, was that every family needs to keep the serpent out of their “garden.” And while the solution is simply to have God always tending the garden, we all know that the reality of putting that into practice isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Hence, we all need to do what we can to have God-made “hedges” built around our gardens. God is always working on it as we are able to allow Him.

The second situation was information that was sent to us about “Biblical Virtues.” Specifically, to pray them for your children. It seemed like the two events came together in an “Aha” moment, so we decided to put the two together and make it known to our children that we are going to use these as a vehicle for “Tending Our Garden.” We plan to send out something once a month emphasizing one different virtue. Now, we can just see the eyes rolling and comments like, “What, they’re going to keep treating us like little kids and give us bedtime stories?” And, “They didn’t teach us so well the first time around, so what’s any different now.” Well, that is no doubt true, but we are not wanting to give advice in order to invite “physician heal thyself.” Lord knows we need as much if not more than you do. So maybe it can be an ongoing dialogue that we know will be rich for us, and perhaps for you. Besides, again, we need something to do.

With that said (don’t like that worn out cliche), please don’t take this as a presumptuous effort on our part to “teach” anyone. Along with comments about the “Virtue of the Month”, we will probably include other musings on a variety of subjects that seem to be of interest to us. Again, don’t think that we are presumptuous enough to think we have something important to say, it’s just that in the times we live everyone seems to be sort of an expert in everything, and we don’t want to be part of that. However, we, as you also, have unique experiences that can be interesting and entertaining. Of course, subjective experiences always are important to the story teller, but often trying to those listening.

So, there you have it. I (dad) have been praying ever since I retired that God would give me a “Big Job” to do (I was hoping it wouldn’t have to be asking my neighbors to go to church). Like many of us, we often feel that we are not using our time wisely for the Kingdom, and would like to “Redeem the Time.” So I think that God has answered my prayer for a big job.