Journal-Lane Question for 1/24/2010: Quote

Ponder this question for today. Write it down in a journal to pass on to family members once you're gone.

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Have a great day.

1/24/2010: You might have heard that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. What does this mean to you? Do you feel it’s true?

This is a saying that my husband says all the time.

And in some ways, it is true.

Since our kids have our genetic makeup as well as having been around our patterns for living (as they’ve observed us), then many ways we handle things will be obvious in them. If I handled money well, they may handle it well.

But, I think it is also possible to change patterns that we’ve observed that we didn’t care for.

One instance in my case was, I didn’t feel my children needed to run do little errands for me because I was feeling lazy. I was capable of doing these things for myself, and had the health to do them. When I enlisted their help, it would be to “teach” something (which they may choose to learn, not learn, and even discard when grown), or to teach sensitivity to situations. I guess you could call it charity.

In other words, I did not ask them to go get me a Kleenex to blow my nose when I knew where they were and could get it myself.

But, if we were to about have company passing through unexpectedly, and I needed to tidy up the house, I would enlist their help. After all, we are here to be of help to each other, when it is really needed. And eventually, they will need my help in a pressing situation as well.

Now my children are also free to choose for themselves, after they are grown and living under their own roof, how they wish to conduct themselves. After all, the only way we really change something is if WE PERSONALLY don’t like it.

They may change something down the road, and they’ll observe the repercussions from those changes. They may come back to the original way … or may not.

We may help develop their inclination, but they are not programmable robots without brains. If a way I do something is not producing the results I want, God gave me brains and a will to change it.

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