By Rosie Preston
During this time of year, many people will celebrate the Christmas season in different ways according to their religious and/or family beliefs. This is a time when so many of our citizens and people in other parts of the world will know of Jesus, Son of God and of his earthly mother, Mary. According to the scripture in the Christian Bibles, Mary was chosen by God because she was an outstanding and worthy servant to fulfill the promise of the Savior coming to earth born of a virgin.
I think about the time I longed to have my first child. Most of my friends were also eager to start a family. It is a dream that comes just as much as everything a young girl growing up may be excited to be married and have a home with her husband. Often as not, they will make a decision to have a child. I have two friends who adopted children to be a significant part of their already large family.
All mothers and fathers have different ideas on how to raise their children. They do not realize until their child is born into a depth of love that is indescribable that much of the experiences and situations will not always give a parent much time to sit and think about it. It was a big surprise to me. Many times, I asked myself, “What do I do?”
It could have been something in the beginning about a tummy ache. That’s only the start, because as long as you are engaged with your child, it never stops. The caring, the love, the desire for success will be with the parents much longer than the 18 years that you think they will be of age and on their own. And in many ways, they are.
When I was pondering this subject the other day, I wrote down some thoughts. I hope you enjoy it. Hopefully it will engage readers in a time and place where they may think of being a child again. And then after having a child, the feeling of responsibility of caring for the child.
Thoughts of parenting
Is it an opinion when a child is born that the loving one called “mother” would care for every need? Every hungry moment, the desire to feed and clean, and every little thing that brings tears to its eyes?
Would the one called “father” be a gentleman and yet with the living hand still feel the responsibility of providing for the child and to protect that child, even while discipling with the switch cut from a tree?
Can a mother and father listen to the voice, no matter what the age? For to carry out the longing needs of a child with their soul, then question, ‘Can this be exercised yet, while choosing love’? This insinuation that the family could be a storybook lifestyle sounds wonderful, even though it cannot be contained, for it would not teach the true ways of our world.
As it is while stepping away from the known and into the unknown that a child will begin to grow away almost immediately from the beliefs of the mother and father to behave in a way to face sadness, danger, unfairness, hunger, and thirst, and hopefully a child will have the memories of loving guidance to call its own.
Happy holidays, Rosie
Contact Rosie Preston at rosie.preston@yahoo.com.