Parents! What are they suppose to do? What is it we need to do?

I grew up in a non-Christian home. I came to know the Lord Jesus as Savior when I was 14 years old.

*Side Note:   This is where I first met my husband to be, he was 16 and the PK. No he was not one of those PK’s. I may be tooting my horn, but, I kind of think the mold was broken after what God created in this man. He was a regular teen growing up, BUT, a heart for the Lord and His things, he was very conscious to what he did and had respect for his parents, their thoughts and toward the Lord.

I was not raised to believe one thing or another. God was not a part of our lives. My parents did believe in God and acknowledge that there was a God, but we were left to choose what we wanted when the time came “right for us.” It didn’t matter what religion it could have been, just not Jehovah Witness…go figure? As it was once put to me, “they all have their own god.”

Come to find out, at the age of 49, both my parents had accepted the Lord as Savior when they were children, but severe circumstances in their young lives devastated the families or them as a child and were turned off to any “religion.”

But in all this I KNEW that I was loved in every way. I was well taken care of in every way. I knew I had parents that loved each other. As a matter of a fact, I grew up and NEVER heard or saw my parent argue or disagree with each other. That was something they purposed when they first got married that would NEVER be seen by the kids…and we didn’t. I didn’t know that they had a hard time with each other at all until I was later in high school and recognized a few weird things and asked questions…and they were answered. My parents were always there to talk to and give the best answers they knew how or they’d find out for us.

Dad was an abused child and lived much with his aunt, his dad’s sister. His mom was very abusive. Dad was an only child. Life was difficult not knowing if it was safe to come home or not as a young boy. As he got older like many other teens with a problem or two, got into a little trouble and his dad sent him to welding trade school in Ohio. Then moved to help Grandpa in his business and so on. 

Mom’s dad died in an accident when she was 9 and she had 2 brothers, one older and 2 younger. Grandma never remarried. Grandma also was diagnosed with MS before Grandad‘s death. She cared solely for grandma from the age of 12-13  and quite school at 15 to go to work and support herself and grandma. Her brothers were in and out of trouble for many years, were not much help at the time with mom and grandma. By this time grandma was confined to wheelchair.

My parents meet on the 10th day of September of 1960. They were married the 23rd, of the same year and I was born the following year on the 13th. Seems a bit strange they met in September, knew each other 13 days and married and I was born on the 13th…coincidence..God doesn’t do coincidences…

Dad worked 2 jobs many times through the years as we grew up so that mom could stay home and take care of the 4 of us. We lived in a small mountain town in New Mexico..dad logged, sawmilled, wielded and a diesel mechanic. I am the oldest, my sister..15 months younger, then 2 brothers, one 4 years younger and the other 9 years younger. Dad had Sundays off (we didn’t go to church) and he made every attempt to spend that day with us. I don’t feel we ever lacked for anything.

My parents this past fall of 2010. Photo by Candy Clonts

 I thank the Lord for them.

Just like many other parents…they have their learning and growing to do just as we did..I mean, huh need to do. The old saying goes something like this..When I was a baby they was everything. As I became a toddler I still needed them there to help me along. In grade school, dad was the strongest of all the dads and mom the prettiest and best cook. In Jr High….huh…I can do it! I will do it! I can figure it out! Don’t embarrass me! Stay out of sight! I’ll call IF I need you! I need your money not you! (sad to say I did do a few of these things, at different times, but they were  never really an embarrassment to me; nor did I need their money more than I needed them; I did want to do most (almost all) things by myself and try to figure it all out.) Then in High School, I’m alright dad and mom, I’m all grown now, I think I can do this by now (whining, here). I got married and things they said wellllll….maybe they were right all along. I have my own kids…Oh my goodness…pehaps I should have taken notes. My kids are all about grown and gone and now I am a grandma…Good grief…I need you again. Strange how it seems to work that way. My daddy and momma were and are good parents they made a lot of mistakes and they will admit to that, but I know they did the best they could, with what they knew and what they had. That is what we can expect from parents. They have a great commission that they don’t understand. They don’t have a manual that seems right. But there is one, the Bible, the greatest manual ever written. Read it! Try it! Watch it work. But God did give us and our children a will of thier own..that is where the trouble is…our will.

Proverbs 22:6
    Train up (discipline, dedicate) a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Deut. 5:16 
    Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Proverbs 6:20 
    My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

Proverbs 23:22 
    Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.

Col. 3:20 
    Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.

As a prent myself there were more times than not that I blamed myself and what if I could have done this or that differently things would be better or just different, I still do it at times. Yes I probably could have, should have done things differently….hindsight is 20/20…I continue to ask Jesus for His help. I did the best I knew to do with what I had. There were many tears and prayers. God reassured me through His word and through other people dear to me.  God is always faithful as we trust Him.

Deut. 6:4-12
    Hear, O Israel (…your family name here): The Lord our God is one Lord: [5] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. [6] And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: [7] And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. [8] And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. [9] And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. [10] And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (…your family name here), to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, [11] And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; [12] Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt (a type of the world), from the house of bondage.

 Ephes. 6:4
    And, ye fathers, provoke (exasperate, enrage, bring to anger) not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 

So to other parents…especial to ones that are struggling with young ones or teens, take heart, pray, pray some more, cry and cry again, pray and pray even more..seek His word…read and read over and over…your help and direction is there…trust Him. Parents, don’t beat yourselves up. Do the best you can with what you have and what you  know to do and LEAN ON AND TRUST JESUS for the rest…for they (your children) are His to begin with and He loves them more than we do, He created them.

God’s grace is so revealing of the Hope we have in Him. God bless you. I love you and pray for you as you read my daily life with Jesus.