By Glenda Anderson

In Matthew 13, Jesus gives us the parable of the sower. The sower sows many seeds, many of which never reach their designed growth. Only a few good seeds thrive. The question arises: what can we do to better our chances of having a good seed grow instead of a bad seed? Ask any gardener…he knows.

A fruitful garden takes time and patience. The ground needs to be carefully tilled and prepared; the right nutrients must be added to enhance each seed’s growth. The rocks must be removed, and furrows made to guide the growth of each individual seed. Once the seeds are planted, even greater care is required to maintain proper growth of the garden. The gardener needs to regularly water it… uproot the weeds that spring up… protect the garden from insects and wildlife,… carefully examine each plant, to make sure it is free from disease. He knows the painstaking work that goes into each planting season and has good reason to give thanks when his garden produces a bountiful crop. This is a perfect picture of the eternal principle of sowing and reaping. When we sow good seeds and nurture them properly, we WILL reap blessings. That is God’s way…and His promise.

We have to ask ourselves: are we giving such meticulous care to our families? Are we planting the seeds of truth, righteousness, integrity, values, and character? Are we liberally watering our child with love, prayer, encouragement, and consistent discipline? Then the toughest question of all: are we taking the time day by day to nurture these precious seeds, stand guard over them, ever-diligent to ward off even the slightest threat to their maturity? If we are, then our child will turn out OKAY.

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By Paul Anderson

The lady had briskly left her seat about midway in the center section of the church pews and had taken her nine year old son by the hand and removed him from his seat on the front row. At first I thought her action meant on the spot punishment for the boy or at best his longest reprieve would be until she got him out the front door of the church.

My assumption concerning the woman’s intentions proved to be one hundred percent wrong. Her anger was not directed toward the boy she was now leading out the door of the sanctuary: it was toward me. The unmistaken evidence of this was not only the icy stare she had given me as she had glared at me behind the pulpit but also her verbal outburst as she walked out the door. “No one is going to talk to MY child like that!”

My words had triggered this incident in the packed church where I was speaking. I had performed several feats of strength and was about eight minutes into my message when it became absolutely necessary to speak to the group of boys on the first pew concerning their conduct. They were progressively getting out of hand and beginning to disturb the entire service. The apparent leader of the misbehavior was the lady’s son who was offended by my mild scolding, which went something like this: “Fellows, settle down. Remember you are in the Lord’s house.”

I am always reluctant to correct young people in the audience, because I know there is a possibility that it will be embarrassing for their parents or the audience as a whole. Regardless of my feelings in this matter, if we were to continue the worship service, my reprimand was necessary. When the woman retrieved her son and chastened me with such a fiery tongue lashing, I realized a direct rebuttal from me was essential in order to salvage the remainder of the service. I knew there was a possibility that the other boys’ parents might follow the outraged lady’s example, which would destroy the entire evening. After a two second prayer for guidance, I said, “We can protect and even rescue our children from situations brought on by their misbehavior when they are small and the transgression is minor, but, we cannot deliver them out of a prison when they grow up.”

Now came the critical time. What would be the congregation’s reaction to my remark? Would they all walk out? Could I expect a silent and “zombie-like” audience for the remainder of the service? No! I immediately heard several loud “amens” from all over the building and the rest of the evening was “spiritually enthusiastic,” to say the least.

As parents, we need to know how other adults see our children. Other adults are not blinded by the love and protective instinct we possess. By listening to the way teachers, coaches, spiritual leaders, and other interested adults see our boys and girls, we will be better equipped to guide and direct them.

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Ironically, right around the time of Heath Ledger’s death, the following was on the marquee at a local theater:

Heath Ledger in
I’m not there

As I looked at this every day on my way to and from work, the sadness of that title was profound. And though, not trying to draw too many conclusions or metaphors from the title, I could not help but think how in many ways, that when we are at home with our spouses and our children, often we are there in body, but not really there in mind.

I hear parents ask the same question: “when my son/daughter is home, it seems like he or she is not really there.” Or “all my son wants to do is sit in his room and play videogames. He seems withdrawn and distant.” What those parents seem to be saying is that they are with us in body, but are not really there in mind. While it is easy to ask that question aloud concerning our children, I wonder how true it is for us as not only spouses, but also as parents.

How do we anchor our children to reality and to us as parents, when so often we are disengaged ourselves?

We live in a self-created fiction yet cannot ignore reality even in our fiction. That is a pretty deep way to start to answer the question, but it is true…we create our own sense of reality. Our children merely emulate our behavior. This virtual world that we see in the internet, 500 different cable channels, thousands of movies, an author on every corner, text messaging, living life on phones did not create itself. We have created a world, a fiction that surrounds the universe of me. As parents, we have passed that on to our children and given them new tools and a faster way of doing it.

But how real is that fiction? And what is the problem with doing it anyway? Everyone likes to escape reality from time to time don’t they? I know I do.

For me, I use entertainment as a way to escape reality. Often it is a book, a movie, or even a television show. Lately, the internet has been a way for me to explore my interests….a virtual library at my fingertips. Is there really anything wrong with me doing this?

This is when I begin to live in my own fiction. The fiction that tells me I am the only one who matters: the only one I need to worry about pleasing. In the words of Terrell Owens; “I love me some me,” and that is the crux of the problem. We are generally so enamored with ourselves that we really are not there. “There,” is the reality of life. “There,” is the place most often we are trying to escape. We often have trouble anchoring ourselves as parents and our children to the reality of life. Life exists on the other side of fiction.

What does that mean? Heath Ledger, truly, is no longer here, and that is the reality of life. He was trying to escape from his own reality with no knowledge of the consequences that would come. Drugs for so many people are an escape, yet they are perilously used to seemingly add color to a life that seems dull…black and white.

Life is fleeting and it goes all too quickly. Yet given the speed of life, how do we establish a sense of permanence in our children? How do we anchor them to the reality of life and the permanence of hope?

Certainly it seems that anchoring our children and ourselves to reality is a challenging task. Life, in many ways, seems odder than fiction. A newspaper on any given day can make that point for us, but a recent article suffices. According to the Australian newspaper, The Telegraph, “suicidal pets are getting anti-depressants, particularly tropical birds such as parrots which seem to have been the most affected by depression.”

The news and the advances of technology on any given day make it seem as if reality is a moving target and challenging at best. From birds taking Prozac to robots that are being developed so we can have virtually interactive sex, it would appear that reality changes with each generation.

However, in a shifting culture, there are principles that we as parents need to embrace so to anchor our children and ourselves to reality.

• Reality is not relative nor, is truth. If reality and truth were relative, then no one would ever be wrong.
• Truth does exist. O.J. Simpson either did or did not kill his wife. The fact that you or I do not know the answer does not mean that an answer does not exist.
• In the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson: “The fact that there is such a thing as twilight does not mean that we cannot distinguish between night and day.”
• We cannot merely live virtually, apart from others. E-mail, voice mail, and the phone, are all ways that we now seek to live our lives without interacting with others. The virtual touch has become easier than the personal touch. We however, are built to be in relationship. Virtual interaction, will never be as good nor as challenging, as the real thing.
• We all need down time. We all need to relax. Weariness is not an excuse to entertain ourselves into isolation, into our “own reality.”

Technology and culture will change. The movement of society is not an excuse to let ourselves and our children be absent in our own homes. Weariness is not an excuse to let our children retire to their rooms, live virtually on the phone or internet, watch their TV, apart from us. We allow them to do those things because it is easier. It allows us to live our own lives, while ignoring theirs. But it is not reality. We as parents need to guard ourselves from escaping reality. In doing this, we can prevent our children from escaping into their own fiction.

The other side of fiction is reality. It is a world we all live in, and we are not alone in it.

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Dealing with questions and fears

In the late 1960’s I was an Infantry Platoon Leader in the Vietnam War. As I was being trained in the United States in the months prior to my departure for the jungles of Viet Nam, I was extremely cognizant of the dangers and horror that awaited me once I arrived there. I knew for example that the life expectancy of a Rifle Platoon leader was literally minutes on average in any battle. This recognition honed my attention to what I was being taught in the classroom and in the training fields of Ft. Benning, Georgia, and Ft. Sheridan in the Panamanian jungles. I knew that my ability to respond with knowledgeable instinct, spontaneously without the necessity of much thought, was vital to my survival and that of my men. The battlefield is chaotic and lends itself to what combat soldiers know as the “fog” of war. There is no time to check your notes or try to remember what you have forgotten. Your first response needs to be the right one!

There are great similarities here in preparing for the physical and spiritual realities of any tragedy. We need to know the nature and revealed intentions of our Heavenly Father, the experience and work for our salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Satan desires to rob, steal, and destroy. Those who have wrestled with God know the tactics of the enemy and have prepared themselves with such head and heart knowledge: these are the people to whom those who are suffering turn when tragedy strikes.

It is not enough for parents to prepare themselves. They should prepare their children for tragedy as well. As parents, concerned about our children’s well-being and emotional health, we tend to shield them, as much as we can, from the trauma that is common to tragedy. We do not want them to have nightmares or be traumatized by specific knowledge or sight of violence, accidents involving serious injury or death, or anything we deem better handled by mature minds.

When living in Scotland many years ago our two oldest children were only one and three years of age. We came across a devotional book written for little children called Peep of Day, first published in Scotland in the 1800’s. I was struck by the honesty with which it spoke to their infant minds about the fragility of life and what could happen to their small bodies in a great fall or similar accident. It spoke to them in simple words about their bodies being wonderfully made, but also containing breakable bones, “losable” blood, and woundable flesh. It addressed the real possibility of death even at a young age. My wife and I were impressed about how naturally we parents try to shield our little ones from knowledge about the harsh realities of life–things they may very well face in their earliest days. It is just as true that we underestimate what they can understand about their Heavenly Father and His personal involvement in their lives: truths we must help them see and appreciate.

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