Change - It's a good thing

     May is here and with it come many transitions. Our high school seniors will graduate. Some of them will leave  right away for a summer semester in college. The fifth grade students who,since Christmas have seemed to big for the elementary school classes, will graduate to youth group and seem so very young and small. Similarly, last year's four year olds will turn into this years kindergarteners and move out of the nursery and into Children's Church and regular Sunday school.

    Just as children change groups and schools, parents transition to the new, bigger child or more responsible adult in their families. Growth and change are good things, but they can be frightening as well.  I am reminded of Gideon who was called by God but couldn't quite believe he was being called. "Give me a sign." he asked God. And God did. "Give me another sign" he asked again and again God have him a sign. Still he was unsure  and, it seems, afraid of the change of plans God had for him. Gideon prevailed once he embraced the change of direction God presented.

     Likewise, embrace the changed child in your house, the independently minded young adult living under your roof (or under a university's roof at your expense).  It is how God created all of us, to move forward, to change. Peace will be closer if we embrace these transitions as a gift from God.

Smile Your Children are Watching

   Parenting can be confusing. When to be stern and when to laugh in response to a child's antics is often a close call. There is one small thing all parents could do more often that is only difficult to remember not difficult to do. Greet your child with a smile. Walmart  has greeters; Disney world is awash with smiling faces to greet people; fancy hotels and museums arrange to have someone to greet each person with a smile.  It is a worthwhile endeavor to smile as a greeting to children.

   I have the occasion to watch children and parents come back together at the end of Sunday school or children's Church or after mid week classes. Often it seems that parents are exasperated to see their children. Even before the first sassy word or whiny request can come from the child the parents have a harried look on their faces. No one wants to be greeted with a heavy sigh or a scolding tone. There is time enough to address the problems, demands and complaints after a proper greeting. Children often approach their parents with something they want to say immediately, with a pressing bit of news. It is up to parents to greet them with a smile. To smile at a child is to show them that they are valued, that they are loved and that they are treasured.  The smile says to them that you are so glad to be reunited with them. When children know that an adult in their life loves them and is happy to see them it sets the stage for that child to begin to believe that God can and does love them and that they are indeed worthy of being treasured by, not only their parents, but by the creator of the universe.

   It is not controversial, it is not hard to do, it is just a little hard to remember at first, smile at children give them a small nugget of unspoken love before you launch into solving the problems of day or hour. this small gesture can change the tone of whole  afternoon.

:)

Michelle