plans and purposes

At the very heart of the parenting of our children, my husband, Mark, and I have had one desire in mind...that JM and Alyssa would one day have their own relationships with Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I am so thankful to say that they have indeed given their lives to the Lord and are seeking Him and His will for their lives...in their own way.

Now, I say in their own way because if you know our children you know just how different they are from each other...their personalities, their giftings, their abilities and even their tastes in music are not the same. It is a fact that the Lord created each of them to be just who they are supposed to be, yet He made them totally different from each other.

Which made the verse in Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" both a challenge and a joy to obey, because each of them needed different types of training/parenting to match their different personalities. In essence, God asked me to pay attention to who my children were and raise them accordingly.

This passage stood out to me one day as I sat at John Mark's bedside during a stay at Children's Memorial Hospital. JM was asleep after going through a procedure that removed fluid from around his lung. While he was sleeping I received a phone call from Alyssa, who was away at college, and I stepped out of the room to talk to her. She was calling to share with me the joy she was experiencing as she helped to lead worship at a youth convention...she told me several stories of the ways that she saw the Lord working through their team and the things she was learning, as well. I felt so proud of her, and I told her so.

Then this thought struck me:

Here I had one child laying in a hospital bed and another standing on a stage before 3000 teenagers leading worship.

I was overwhelmed when I thought of the differences in their lives.

The Lord knew what I was thinking because immediately I heard Him speak to my heart "My plan, their purpose". He knew what He was doing in each of their lives, He knew where they were and what was happening to them...and I needed to be reminded of that. He has a plan with a purpose for each one of them to fulfill, and His plan for JM is just as important as His plan is for Alyssa.

I have been so blessed to be their mother...and to have been a part of the training that was needed to set them on their way to fulfilling God's plan for their lives, no matter how different they may be.