“If our gardens need cultivating to grow well, our children need that attention much more. Seeds of excellence and grace must be planted and tended. The weeds of selfishness and bad attitudes must be plucked. The plot must be protected so that the wild storms and prevailing winds of culture will not damage the fruit. In addition, wise food for thought and the finest of art, music, literature, hospitality, and creativity must be fed to fertilize the soul so that the child may grow fruitful and productive.”
So shares Sally Clarkson in chapter 8 of The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child’s Heart for Eternity as we continue through our study and recaps of this wonderful inspiring book!
Sally’s encouragement this week is to provide a little fertilization in the souls of our children through cultivating real life skills, appropriate life experiences, manners and graciousness, and an appetite for excellence. I was inspired to prayerfully evaluate with my husband what important skills we wanted to pass on to our children that would be essential for life and their purpose to go forth and live out the Great Comission (Matt 28:18-20) in all aspects of life.
A love for learning, reading of quality, godly and inspiring materials came to mind. Reading has been the source of planting seeds throughout my life with a vision for missions. I desire them to be hospitable and make their homes embassies of the Kingdom whatever the season of life, and thus I want to teach them how to cook, be social and welcoming to both friends and strangers. Music has been a huge part of both our lives growing up, and thus we want these skills to be imparted to them. Aaron and four of his six brothers all play together on various instruments and have led worship at church on numerous occasions. This is a blessing to see the family led together!
I believe it is important to prayerfully consider what skills we should invest in in order that our children might be prepared, effective and excel in being lights in this dark world (Matthew 5:14-16). That I believe is our ultimate purpose in child raising – to raise up ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20-21)! We can’t send them in a thousand different directions and hope they excel in them all or hope they catch our love for the Lord if they are never with us, but rather we must choose a few areas to focus on where they will be equipped for the calling God has on their lives!
Life experiences was also emphasized in this chapter and I couldn’t agree with her encouragement more to travel together as a family. I was blessed with several opportunities growing up where we traveled around the United States as a family (for various lengths of time and distance). It was such a family bonding experience but also expanded our horizons as to the amazing history and glorious creation we are surrounded with. One of my parents have taken each of us on at least one mission trip when we reached our teens, and this has been another wonderful bonding and eye-opening experience. My eyes have been opened to see beyond my own selfish needs and desires and awakened to passionately desire to meet the needs of others.
Take the time to prayerfully evaluate what you would emphasize in the fertilization of each garden of your children’s souls. Each child will be unique and each garden will need various fertilization, but all in all, let’s pursue excellence and cultivate life skills with a purpose! Consider: What purpose will each skill and life experience serve?
What stood out to you in this chapter? What skills and life experiences do you believe to be most important from a Biblical perspective?
I also liked this chapter a lot…if was a great reminder to me to choose wisely the activities that fill our schedule and make sure that we are choosing things that will develop lifelong skills that will help our children serve God, rather than just “signing” them up for things because that is the thing to do.
Our goal for our children is to get them involved in an activity that they can take with them into adulthood. I want them to enjoy physical exercise for their health and swimming has been a great chance for my girls to work on their diligence as well as learning how to respect and obey their swim teacher. We do plan to start them in piano when they are around 6.
From an academic standpoint, we want our children to love learning, love seeking, and for this to be a lifelong process. We homeschool, and I agree with Sally in that the literature you get to choose to read with your children can be so enriching and so inspiring. We get to pursue their interests which also helps to excite them about learning. We have also started a Spanish program with our girls, 3 and 5, and my husband does it with them for a short time a few days a week. My three year old is loving it the most, and it has been great to talk to the girls about how someday this skill may help them talk to others in Spanish about Jesus.
Lastly, but in my heart, most importantly, I want to nurture a servant’s heart in my children. The kind of heart that I wish I had in my younger years and am still working slowly towards myself. A heart that notices when others are in need of a kind word, a sweet smile or an invitation to play. This takes form by encouraging my children to be respectful of all adults, from thanking the cashier at the grocery store, asking permission for a sample at Costco, thanking the storytime teacher at the library, asking what they can do to help in Sunday School. My desire is that they would naturally see the needs of others first, and that as Jesus came to serve and not be served, our family would follow His example.
I loved this chapter, and really enjoyed reading your thoughts on all Sally had to share. One of the areas that stuck out to me was her thoughts on choosing fine literature. My oldest daughter is 2, and already I am so excited about cultivating beauty in her life through stories, literature, travel, art, etc. I have been using the book Honey for a Child’s Heart — it talks about the difference between giving your children just milk (the necessities) and giving them sweet honey by providing beauty in their little lives. I think that is a little bit of what Sally was saying as well. We cultivate flowers of graciousness, hospitality, creativity, generosity, etc, when we give our children something beyond just the milk and bread that nourishes their bodies. Stories, both Biblical and high quality fiction enrich our lives in so many ways… they teach character qualities(like honesty and bravery), sensitivity, empathy, and introduce effective communication as well. I love the way that reading together can create memories and shared “friendships” as well. Elisa and I often talk about our experiences in terms of stories. “Look! We are planting a carrot seed just like the little boy did! Do you think our carrot will grow as big as his?” (From the Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss). Anyway… lots of rambling, but wanted to say this was an especially inspiring chapter and post.
What a wonderful post! I thoroughly enjoyed reading that. I’ve been wondering along those lines myself for a while, but you were able to put in in a much more concise manner than I ever could!
such an encouraging post – my garden has certainly taught me a lot! That sounds weird, but for example, I left it for 2 weeks doing nothing to it cos I was busy… it was so overgrown and ugly! And it made me realise how the same can happen in my life if I neglect prayerfully asking God to weed out the sin in my life.
xx