More Precious Than Gold

This morning I woke early but lingered in bed to think and to pray. I was thinking about how many of my parents generation and now my generation have moved into retirement villages, places where their children have to sign in to stay a couple days, where children are only allowed at the community pool during certain hours and where the concept of generations blending is looked upon as some sort of thing to get away from. More and more of these adult communities are springing up all over the place, a place to get away from your children, from children in general as if they are just some sort of nuisance and not the blessings of life. If your children are not a blessing to you in your old age, why is that ? Is selfishness and pride keeping you from accepting them when they are less than perfect ? The world these days is a hard place to grow up in, children are bombarded with ugliness and attitudes that don't exactly foster kindness and selflessness and sometimes those attitudes came homegrown ! So often parents shout things like "shut up" or "go play, I am busy" to their children on a daily basis and then expect kindness and patience in return as they themselves grow to the place where they need help or a listening ear. Children do live what they learn from us and turning and running to some community for adults only, running from a place where we can say by our lifestyle, we want to be part of your life, we want to show our grandchildren or the neighbor children for that matter, that life is not just about "us" and our interests. All that talk about the generation gap, well we are sealing that deal with our demand for these children free communities !

I think about my dear grand-babies and what a joy it will be to have them part of our lives, to sing to them, to have them hear Grandpa ask the blessing before our meals with his strong but tender loving voice. To have a home where they can dash through Grammies front door any time, not even knock, not have security gates to drive through, with signs telling about all the rules regarding having children visit. We want to be accessible at any time. Lives bound together by a sense of family, generational love, The kind of heartstrings that bind us together with kindness that will reach from generation to generation. Family, that will always have time for one another. Sure, its not always an easy thing, but its a worth while thing. There is something very golden about wanting to spend time with your children and their children, more than spending time with friends or sitting in a club house with a bunch of people you hardly know. To those with children not living close to them, forget the senior community scene. When you retire, move to be close to your children and your grandchildren and share your life with them. If your children don't want you to be near them, then spend some time finding out why that is and begin mending those fences without resentment or blame or any hint of a defensive attitude on your part and start building anew.

Proverbs 17:6 Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

This mornings sunrise

Chilly enough for a good fire in the stove, and the kettle on for tea

Just a little note here about having close loving family. Melanie in her haste yesterday forgot to bring her syringes for her shots. Steven went to the pharmacy, picked some up for her and drove 45 miles or so from his home to the hospital and handed them to his sister. Rather than have her have to leave the baby and make the long trip home to get them. It brought tears to my eyes to see such brotherly love.