Reaping the Harvest

We tried to raise our children with love, faith, and positive attitudes. Sometimes I felt I wasn't doing so well at that...not based on results but based on my own less-than-perfect attitudes that I sometimes struggled with.

But now, I am in awe. Where did our children (now adults) get their optimism, their enthusiasm, their caring attitudes? I think they each took what we gave them, planted it, watered it, fed it, and let it grow like Jack's beanstalk.

After my son was hit by a car a few months ago, I expressed my dismay and he said, "My mother told me that God brings good out of evil."

Last night my daughter and a friend sat for nine hours on the freeway, where snow had crippled the traffic. I told her today that I had thought last night that if she had taken the bus home, she would have been home before the rush hour weather got bad. She pointed out that, then, our friend would have been alone, but instead she had someone to keep her company and make her laugh.

I was talking to a son about the job market and the "what if's": What if someone loses their job? He said, then God has something better for them.

Each of my children helps me in some way: one might negate my negativism, one might make me laugh; another time one will calm me, or encourage me, or strengthen my faith in God. With my husband, I gave my children life...and we gave them love. They give us back a hundredfold.