Parental Guidance

There are 364 days until its my favorite holiday again. Usually this is the worst day out of every year for me, but this year is just the topping on my list of terrible days this year. Yesterday was fun and a wonderful way to remember how special the day was. Everyone was on their best behavior and it seemed like there was a true holiday cheer. This is one of the reasons that I love this holiday. Everyone is unusually kind and caring. It seems that children try to be on their best behavior while they wait for Santa to come. I am not saying that Christmas makes everyone behave perfectly but rather that they try harder to behave on this one day. The very best part is that for one day people that don't usually attend church, go to Church.

Christmas eve and Christmas day are wonderful opportunities to remind people of the real reason that we celebrate this season. God is needed in this world and for every other day of the year more and more people fight against letting God into their lives. On this one holiday I notice that people are more open to talking about Christ and what He has done in our lives. The day after Christmas, my mom and I always go out shopping because everything Christmas is on sale. We buy lots of presents for the following Christmas on the day after Christmas and put it all away. We talked about traditions with people that we conversed with today and a door was opened each time to talk about the Lord. I get so uplifted when cashiers stop to tell us about their Church services and say the words "Merry Christmas" to us as we leave. One woman talked to us about Christ before learning that we too were believers.

I was feeling really great about the work that God was doing not only through my life, but through the lives of others around me. Then as we were standing in line to pay for our items at one store, I was listening to families around me and my hope began to fade. Kids were arguing with their parents over items that they wanted that Santa hadn't brought them. I kept thinking how spoiled these kids were acting and I felt bad for the parents. One conversation that really bothered me was the conversation between a daughter and a mom behind me in line. The daughter was on her phone and getting angry at tweets that she was reading. She turned to her mom and told her mom about the things that people were saying about her. She used a great amount of profanity and her mother didn't seem to care.

The girl wanted to retaliate against the girls who were saying rude things about her and I waited for the mom to give advice and tell her not to. Instead the mother told her she could do it if she wanted to because the girl deserved it. Then she told her daughter to be care not to get her boyfriend involved because if he were involved he would break up with the daughter. I was so offended that the mom let the daughter speak to her like that and then not advise her to be the bigger person.

For the first time in a while I was glad that my parents acted like parents for my entire life. The relationship between that mother and daughter was like a best friend from school relationship. There was no guidance from a parents perspective because the mother was not acting like a parent. This really struck me as a potential cause for the lack of respect that kids now have toward their parents. This brought me back to the verse in Ephesians which says:

"Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do." Ephesians 6:1

This verse applies to my life so much because it has been drilled into my head and its how I try to handle every situation with my parents (even when its really hard). I never thought about what would happen when your parents aren't believers and don't give you good advice throughout your life. For those of us that have the good parents who have built a foundation on living a Godly life, should be praying for those who do not. Take a moment to thank your parents for being able to guide you throughout life and through all of your struggles. Even when we didn't like the discipline it taught us something about living life as a believer. For those of you whose parents are not believers pray for them as well because its never to late to accept Christ. As for me, I choose to pray for the parents who are so lost that they are not teaching their children how to be good people.