Today's Challenge

From the first reading this morning:

“However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.” (Dt. 4:9)

What things are you teaching your children? What am I teaching mine?

My kids love to hear stories, especially stories of themselves as babies or DH and me as children. They love the connection, the continuity, and the starring role they (and we) play in these stories. My parents and grandparents told us similar stories when my sisters and I were young.

Family stories tie us together, generation through generation, connecting those of us who have gone before with those still to come. BigBro is named for my grandfather, who died in 1991. Because of all the stories I've told him, BigBro knows a lot about his namesake, and will someday, hopefully, pass along those stories, those memories, of him to generations yet to come.

I ask you again, what are you teaching your children? We have the greatest story ever told... the greatest story of them all. Are you sharing that story with your children? Are you telling them, over and over, in bits and pieces, about the God who loves so deeply that he took on human form, that he lived and breathed and ate and slept and felt hurt and loss and anger and sadness, and eventually he chose to suffer and die all because he loves so deeply? Are you telling your children about the role they play in this story?

Stories tie us together: families, generations, peoples. The stories we share with our children today become the foundation for the adults they will become, and the foundation for the families they will create.

So, here's today's challenge: share our story with your children, with your grandchildren, with your nieces and nephews, over and over, in bits and pieces, until it becomes a part of the fabric of their being.

"Be earnestly on your guard not to forget...nor to let them slip from your memory as long as you live."