I write a lot about seasons and how I love Summer so much I could probably squeeze it to death. And with the end of my children’s Summer break coming to an abrupt end next week, I’ve been clinging to it with white knuckles. But, I also know that all seasons serve their unique purpose. There’s a rhythm to it all. A cadence and melody. And if it were Summer all the time I am sure I wouldn’t appreciate it like I do. But I’ve never been able to disprove that theory so I may never know.
My family eats outside on our patio almost every night in the Summer time. I love the informal nature of it. We eat. We linger. We enjoy our time as a family while we wait for the lightning bugs to come and dazzle us from the tree tops. Some nights we’ll spend hours out there laughing and talking. Some nights we rush through it.
Tonight we talked about how great this Summer has treated us. We have a new driver in the house with more freedom. Summer camps and long overdue family reunions. We’ve relaxed. We’ve played. And we’ve worked hard too. (VBS anyone?) We’re satisfied with how we’ve lived our life the last few months and looking forward to what the next season will bring.
It’s our last year in middle school and the ever important Junior year of high school. Neither one of my beautiful girls is looking forward to the busyness or the workload. It’s my blog and my girls, so I can brag without restraint that they are both straight “A” honor students. They work hard.
But they also know that is what I expect from them. I don’t expect all A’s but I do expect them to work hard and to do their best. The end result is that they are well rounded kids respected among their teachers and peers. They each have their own interests in choir, dance and theater and they both do well.
That’s not enough for me.
I’ve been thinking about the lives we lead today. Too busy to breathe some nights and we collapse in bed anxious to do it all over again when the sun rises. We program our children with dance and theater. T-ball and academics. We expect straight A’s and accolades.
Do we expect them to know Jesus?
When given the choice between recovering from the busy week on Sunday morning and sleeping in or treating Jesus like He’s part of every season in our life, what do we choose?
We are charged with truancy if we choose not to send our children to school.
What’s the penalty if we choose not to take our children to church?
If we don’t send our children to school, they fail and can’t go to college.
I won’t say that if we don’t go to church we can’t go to heaven, because that’s not true. But if we treat church like it’s optional how can we expect our children to think a relationship with Jesus is a necessity?
There is no Jesus season. He’s not around only at Easter and Christmas. We can’t take a break from His presence in the Summer time just because we went on a beach vacation. He’s always there. On the first and last day of school. On the ball field. At the dance recital. During the opening curtain call. We don’t get a Jesus break because He never takes a break from us.
I’d rather my children fail in school than to fail in realizing that their most important relationship is with their creator.
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