School is underway, and while thinking back I remembered. I remembered counseling my sons before they left for school with words of encouragement. “Remember who you are.” “Be kind.” “Be careful of your associates.” “I love you.” “Have a good day.” “If you need anything, call.” I’m sure many moms do the same, and prayerfully will this year. A very nice touch which is special is to place a note in your child’s lunch, pocket, or backpack to give them encouragement and remembrance of home and who loves and cares for them. We need to encourage our children’s education, but we also want them to get along with their classmates, be polite, kind and helpful to their teacher, in short, to be responsible young people. A son or daughter who will live out daily what they are taught in the home, thereby influencing their friends and teachers.
“Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” I Peter 2:12
“Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” Proverbs 20:11
I didn’t want my husband nor sons to leave home for school or work without them knowing I loved them, and there was a reason. We never know, in the blink of an eye, everything can change, so never leave a loved one with words you will regret, or words you didn’t say. It’s the little things in life which later are the biggest things and the sweetest memories.
I remember fresh baked bread, pies, cakes, cookies, casseroles, and a huge recipe file, and many were surprised I had to triple recipes. They didn’t understand growing boys and a husband who had huge appetites. Normally my sons would play a basketball game before the evening meal with my husband, called “horse.” I think that was the name. I never was a sports fan, but they certainly made up for the difference. I would call them in for a meal, and when they came to the dinner table they would have an appetite. Boys can certainly put away a lot of food. I rarely had leftovers. My oldest could eat more than the other two. Soup to him was a snack.
While working at our job, the boys would travel with us on weekends to help. My oldest would ask me repeatedly, when are we going to eat and what are we going to eat? Quite funny now to remember those days.
They worked hard with their father and helped him with fitting others’ cattle for shows. From Dallas to Houston, San Antonio to Austin, all points in between and beyond Texas, they worked, and in the process learned to have a great work ethic, and when Lord’s day and Wednesdays would arrive, we all were in services.
As the school year begins, may you create memories for your children as well. In all of the distractions and things we do in life. Home is what we want them to remember. Home here on earth and a permanent home in heaven.
“In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2
“For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” Hebrews 13:14
“When the cold wind, starts blowing. If you need anything at all, call home.” ~ Campbell
“Every influential and forceful mother has courage as a basic element of character. Fearlessness is a quality of the heart – not a circumstance of surroundings. It depends on what we have in us – not what we have about us. It is a dynamic, internal power that controls behavior as the person faces difficulties, trials and dangers.
Physical courage is seen as a person risks life for another or a cause. The soldier who gives life for his country is honored among the nation’s heroes; but we often forget the heroism of those who live and serve and die a little everyday in the home.
It takes the bravest courage to face the everyday affairs of life. It is on this battlefield that mothers display a heroic nature that is unexcelled. It is here they unflinchingly triumph amidst all the opposition and friction, strain and heartbreak in life.
Brave is the woman who knows how to handle the anxieties, cares, disappointments, and sorrows of life. If she does not know what to do with a poor batch of bread, a bad fitting garment, a soiled carpet, a torn pair of trousers, a broken dish, an unkind word spoken, a misrepresentation, a let down, a society snub, and a cross look she will fret and worry herself and her family, or go into a pout, or fill her soul with hate and resentment and thereby destroy her loveliness and usefulness.
The universal need for all the services a mother renders, compels her to become a creature of bravery. Too much is at stake for her to be otherwise. And every victory won fits her to win another.” ~ Leroy Brownlow.
“I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.” ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
Eileen Light