Train them up!

So yesterday was mother's day and I can't help but think about the influence that moms have on their children. Moms are so important to their young in all stages of life from birth and nurturing to the teenage days through adulthood moms are pivotal in all phases. Moms many times don't realize the role they play, some times because the father is always the disciplinarian, or sometimes because children just aren't as appreciative as they should be. Either way they need to be thanked more than just once a year and honored more than just for 24 hours. Moms do so much that isn't seen by the public or many times their own children and husband. While dads are working hard to make their children independent and strong, tough and able to endure life's hardships moms are worrying and praying for their young. Moms pray in the morning and the evening worried about how their children will fare that day, that week and even how their young children will turn out as adults. Moms start this at a very young age, while their little ones are a few days old they start the ritual of daily prayer and worry.
Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is older he will not depart from it.
Sure kids falter, sure there are those early adulthood years and mistakes made and poor decisions but the training never goes away and many times they grasp that the moment they slip. Nonetheless continue to train your chldren in the way God would have you to and know that when the grow older they will never depart from the roots of that training.
Here's a story I shared yesterday in my sermon. A young boy had gone off to college and settled into the dorm life. He was a great young man trained and raised by a godly mom. When he settled into his dorm room he decorated it with pictures and posters and all sorts of things just like a lot of young college students do. For the first time in their lives they are completely in charge of the decorating of their rooms.
Well, about a month into the school year mom decided to pay him a surprise visit. And boy was she surprised, she called his roommate and had him meet her and walk her to the dorm room. When she walked in she was both shocked and embarassed by the pictures and posters on the walls of women some barely clothed and others, were nude. This was the theme all accross her son's side of the dorm room. She waited, composed herself and decided that she wasn't going to say anything. She waited for her son outside and then they went to dinner and not a word was spoken of the room or the posters. A week later he recieved a large manilla folder in teh mail, he opened it and it was a picture of his mother in a nice Sunday dress. THere was a note with it that said "I cannot be there with you in college but I am constantly thinking of you. Please hang this picture on your wall and think of me too."
He did just as she said, and the next morning he awoke to her picture and started taking every poster off his walls. She called him later that week and asked him if he had received the picture and he said yes. She asked him if it was on the wall and he told her right where he had put it. He then went on to tell her how he had completely redone his room because he could not have a picture of his mom hanging in the same room with those posters and pictures.
So there you have it, train up a child in a godly way and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Thanks for reading and have an awesome Monday!