There are people that we admire, there are qualities in people that we admire, and there are actions that people take that we admire. Sometimes we look at people and think "I could never be that way, that strong, or that calm." Or we watch people reacting to a terrible situation and think "Would I react that way? Would I have the inner strength to be like that during that situation?" Or we see someone do something, something noble and brave, or maybe it's just thoughtful and kind. Then, we ask ourselves why we didn't think of it first, or if we would have been able to do it at all.
I hope that I can have a moment, or a series of moments in my life where my children can look at me and think something along those lines. I want to be the kind of Mom that makes my children want to be better human beings. I want to be the kind of wife that makes my husband feel loved and I want to be the kind of friend that people remember at the end of the day. I want this so that my children will want to be this way, so that I can raise them to think of others first. I want them to be admirable, maybe not all the time as that might be too much for any mere human, but more often than I am. I want people to see God's glory through them. I don't want people to think that my children do not know love, or how to love, or indeed how to be loved. I want people to feel that my children are loved, not only by me but by something more powerful than me.
To strive to be deliberate, that is the goal. Actions should be measured with whether they matter, whether they help, and whether they teach. What do our actions teach our children? What does our attitude teach? How can we modify both to teach what we want?
I don't have the answers, but I am learning and sometimes we learn from the people that we least expect to learn from and that is wonderful.
Thank you for sharing, Blake. Your children always seem to have a sense of being loved.
ReplyDeleteI think, too, that we always see people from the outside, and from the outside people can seem to have it together, more so than we do. But when we get to know them, we find out where they don't, and that we are all vulnerable.
Thank you Emily, it means a lot that you see that in my children as you are good at noticing things about children, and you spend time with mine when I am not there.
ReplyDeleteWe are all vulnerable, and no one is perfect, I just sometimes see that someone has some aspect that I want to improve in myself. Some people are good at encouraging others to change for the better.