See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy: for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying dead by the way, slain with security.
Samuel RutherfordRead
Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.
Interpretation
Children are precious gifts, and we should cherish them while acknowledging their temporary nature.
This quote reflects the idea that children are like beautiful flowers, given to us for a time. It encourages gratitude for the joy they bring, even if their time in our lives is limited, reminding us to appreciate their presence and the lessons they teach.
In practice
During a family gathering, you might share this quote to celebrate the joy of being with loved ones.
See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy: for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying dead by the way, slain with security.
Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.
I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and funisheth a fairfield to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.
Those who can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship.
You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed.
Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.
We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.
~Sometimes, when I want to take on the world, I try to remember that it's just as important to sit down and ask my son how he's feeling or talk to him about life.~
Parenting is an impossible job at any age.
I didn't have a father to deal with about boyfriends. I didn't have a father to show me how a man and woman relate in a family setting. Therefore, I have given over my life to mentoring young people. I'm adamant about young people who have been denied a father/daughter relationship.
The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not like it doesn't affect us now; it affects us every day, in everything we do.
My father was a Little League dictator. That really affected me, his control-freakery, his impunity, his arbitrary unreasonable power.
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