Bearing Fruit

Many times it has occurred to me that being a Christian mom (and specifically a Christian Homeschooling mom) is a lot like gardening. Now, I am not a huge gardener...but, I've been around Gardeners (with a capital G) and gardened enough myself to know this much: children are a lot like the seeds you plant in the garden. First of all, you can't tell at all what they're going to turn out like when you plant them--you just have to trust--and then, in the beginning, you work hard!! (Though you know that nothing can grow without the Heavenly Father providing the rain, sun, and the miracle of growth.) But you still have to work hard! In fact, that's all you do do. All you do is weed and water, and water and weed--you don't see any fruit. But, if you think, oh, this is too much work, and you slack off(!), what happens? Your garden gets taken over by weeds, and you never do see any fruit, or not much. (You see a lot of that in our world today.) But you cannot let up--you have to be diligent, and keep on, and trust God by faith that it will bear fruit if you don't give up! You still only see a smidgen of hope once in a while. And, if you become distracted by other things in life, or just get too busy, and let the weeds get away from you, you will have a lot of work to gain back the ground you've lost, so it's best if you are daily attentive & diligent.

Yes, children are a lot like a garden. Because, one day, I'd say it's at about 15, though if you've been working in your garden daily for years, it might be earlier, say, even 10 or 12......but all of a sudden, you start to reap what you've been sowing all those years! Now, that's exceedingly good news if you've relied on the Lord, kept obeying, trusting, and conscientiously and intentionally training your children according to the Word of the Lord! Because, bless the Lord, you begin to see your children act responsibly, and talk to other adults, looking them in the eye, and be kind to their little sister, and sometimes the Lord gives you a little "gift" like that first really nice-looking "whatever" from the garden, that gets you excited that you're going to have a really nice crop, if this is any indication! He allows some blessed soul, friend or stranger, to be impressed and pleased in some way and for some reason in interacting with your child or observing them, and that person comes back and tells you about it--Hallelujah! Someone saw something good, some unselfishness, some act of kindness, or a servant heart or respectfulness in my child!! Praise the Lord!!! That is a good day. And those actions and attitudes become more habitual day by day, no, our children are not perfect, but neither are we, but pretty soon you see the mature fruit of a godly young man or woman before your eyes. What joy!

So, I encourage you to press on. Deal with that attitude in your child (the little weed) before it becomes an action (a big weed), be on your knees before the Lord for your children, weed out the sin in your life as well as turning them to the Word and their Heavenly Father in repentence when they sin, live before them as examples by God's grace and daily be in the garden! Trust and obey. And you will bear fruit a hundredfold by God's grace. And you will have many good days.