Seeds (Encouragement When Your Child Doesn't Seem to Remember Heart Essential Lessons)

Turtles are everywhere this spring. Another one visited us today. Adela and her cousin, Samuel, will miss him.

As parents, it is hard to trust in God’s plans and timing when we are working to shape our little ones into His children. We can work, teach, and give a lesson everything we have but worry our child is not getting anything out of our efforts.
 
Perhaps we would feel better about our efforts if we thought of it in a new way.
 
Last week I dropped seeds into the soft soil recently blessed by the rain. I was careful. I took my time. I prepared the soil, carefully placed the seeds, and gently covered them. I watered them. Not too much, not too little. I am doing all I can do to grow plants, but…
 
There is still waiting to do.
 
Adela is going through some changes. She is shedding off those little kid behaviors and cloaking herself with some big girl attitudes. She is opinionated. She is often defiant. She is investing a great deal of her energy into getting what she wants and maintaining control over her world. As I handle one difficult behavior after another, I battle the fear that she has not retained any of the lessons we have poured out on her about love and caring.
 
But, we must not be discouraged, we have planted the seeds.
 
A couple Sundays ago, a little turtle visited our home. Adela, always in love with animals, was ecstatic. She named him immediately and spent the entire afternoon with him. Her attitude that day soothed my heart. She listened attentively to our instructions on how to care for the turtle. She sang him songs. She reassured him when the thunder banged into the heavens. Then, before bed, she released him into the wild and told him goodbye. She understood that his home was out in the pastures and not with us.
 
I was so proud of her. Those seeds we have planted about love and selflessness did fall upon good soil. Perhaps we do not witness many fruits of these lessons everyday, but I know those truths are within her.
 
Sometimes the hardest action of a parent is doing our job-planting those seeds-and trusting God with the growth.
 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Matthew 13:31-32, ESV 

What are some of the most important truths you have worked hard to share with your own children or loved ones?