It's a verse that many of you have probably heard--and placed claims upon!--but I studied it afresh and just had to share.
Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
After pulling out my handy-dandy...Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance, and beseeching the Lord to solidify the depth of His promise found in this single verse, I came away lifted. Encouraged. With a second--or fifteenth--wind for this parenting thing.
But rather than (possibly) bore you with my long list of Hebrew nuances found in this brief text, I am going to expand the verse a bit. Taking some "creative license." Lord, help me be true to Your precious Word.
So here it is, to my fellow parent-sojourners:
The brevity of these child years catches us off guard. Like at the grocery store when your once-baby now reads your list and finds the spice you need; when just yesterday (it seems) you rocked her to sleep in secret because the books told you to let her cry it out.
Brief years. But a vapor.
YET. Yet the effects of the dailiness impress upon the character soon to be revealed. Each teaching in morality or righteousness or love or their own creative-individuality sets in motion the course of their life. Each one. Massaging their way. Initiating a belief and a pattern.
Never doubt your impact.
And the promise is sure because it comes from the only Ultimate Truth. He designed young hearts to be molded. They will be molded...by something. And even in elder years, their feet feel at home on that road paved in adolescence. The road in which we trained them.
Though the gap between the words falling from our lips and their clinging to them as their own may keep us bound to our Father in prayer, believe Him faithful to fulfill the promise. Believe Him gracious to pick up the pieces we have dropped and shattered. Believe Him to be the sovereign Lord.
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