Lessons learned through parenting

This is something I wrote down a few years ago -- it was written in present tense then, so I 'll have to change it to make it past tense for today.

Things I've learned about God through being a parent:
1. He misses fellowship with His children when His children neglect spending time with Him, or when they become too busy to spend time with Him. I learned this when my son was in college. He didn't call us much because his life was so busy with school, Young Life activities and church activities, etc. I was very happy that he was involved in those good things, but I missed him and would have loved to hear from him more often.

2. God sometimes has special gifts that He is planning to give us at the right time. We don't even know He is planning these special blessings and there's nothing we've done to deserve them, but He just has them ready to give us at His perfect time for a specific reason because He loves us. I learned this years ago after my minivan was totalled in a wreck. When we bought a replacement vehicle (a used Camry), we bought it with our daughter in mind. We bought it with the intention of using it as our family car during the year that she was learning to drive, then letting that car become the car she would drive after getting her license. She did not know our intention for that car, even though it had already been bought. We had to wait until the right time to give it to her -- certain requirements had to first be met.

3. Everything we have belongs to God. He lets us use them so that we can serve Him better. This goes back to the story above about the car. When my daughter did receive the blessing of the car, it still belonged to us (her parents) but was available for her to use in order to help us.

**I guess it's been about four years since I wrote down those lessons learned. Now that the son is finished college and the daughter is in college, I have learned a few more lessons. One is that God is perfectly capable of taking care of my kids so that I don't always have to be there. Also, His Word is sufficient and can speak volumes louder and much more effectively than my words.**

Thank you for reading my blog and have a wonderful weekend!