Why do Bad things happen to Good people?

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Over the last two weeks, I have been pulled in many directions but, through the whole process, I have had the opportunity to enjoy small pleasures that service for the Lord can bring. As fall, vernal equinox begins to approach, we watch flocks of geese fly over our farm at dawn and at dusk; we have a few hummingbirds fighting over the feeder on the deck. The hair on our horses and dogs are thickening up as the days get shorter and the temperatures are cooling down.

 With the changes that occur with the seasons also comes a personal time for reflection and internal change.  I have grown up hearing the saying that the only two things in life that you can have a guarantee of  is death and taxes. Everything else is going to change.  With this guarantee of change is also the guarantee that life is not easy. Now, the word “easy” is subjective and surely, relative in nature.

 When I say the word easy, to an adult, that task may be considered difficult to a child, depending on their size strength and age.  I feel that the words “good” and “bad” are also subjective in nature and can be interpretative. I have used the phrase, out of desperation, “Will you sit down and behave”. Or, “Please try to be GOOD today”. When giving my girls directions as to my expectations in their actions and daily choices.

 One afternoon, as we were driving down the road to our destination, I asked the girls to please sit down and “behave”.  To my surprise, a small voice can from the back of the car asking, “Mama, what do you mean when you say behave?” Once again, I was stopped in my tracks, and I realized that my expectations for their behavior needed to be explained and broken down for their understanding. My girls were not mind readers and using the blanket expression, “Behave!” did not provide them with the data that they needed to understand.  So!!! As we traveled the remainder of our trip to the grocery store, we discussed some examples of what “Good” behavior was and “Bad” behavior was. As the girls got older, we modified our expectations to meet their needs and my expectations so that everyone knew what behavior was expected and did not have to guess to stay out of trouble.

We have control of HOW we react!

We DO NOT have control of the events and circumstances that we are faced with.

Just as our children look to their parents to provide additional information, or guidance through learning experiences, I feel that God also provides us with the same learning experiences.  Adults need to remember that we must demonstrate “child like faith” and move through the seasons in our lives with a sense of learning and wonder. We are not to mope around with the attitude of “poor, poor, pitiful me….. I have experienced all of this sadness and hard ache, what am I to do?”

As Christians, we are the only bible that some people see….. Are we providing an example through our daily attitudes and choices that will witness to others? 

As a Christian adult in a non Christian world…. I, like my children, when they were little, must depend on God to see the whole picture, know what the circumstances of events play in the lives of everyone involved, and trust that I have learned how to behave in a manner that will always meet the expectations that are set before me. I have control of how I react to the news of worldly events around me. I do not have control of the events themselves. God does or he allows it!  

My daily focus is to be a Christian role model in a Non Christian world. I pray that I will always be a witness for my faith and never be a stumbling block for those around me.  I MUST demonstrate a “childlike faith” of trust and know that everything will be alright in the long run.  Focusing on my behavior, my attitude, thanking God for the opportunity to be a witness for Him through every event and aspect of my life is my goal.

Yes…. Bad things happen to good people…. But,  I focus on how I fit into the Big picture as a witness whether I understand or not…..I don’t have to worry about the why. God handles that.

 I concentrate on how can I be a witness and what can I do to help?…… that is my prayer and focus.

How Little Ones learn

Proverbs 1:8 NIV
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching

Parents and family are a child’s first teacher. Even as an infant, when the baby cannot talk, they are like little sponges, soaking up all that is around them with their senses.

The baby receives stimulation from touch as the adult holds, rocks and plays with him.  Water and temperature play an important role in touch stimulus.  Make sure that the temperature is carefully regulated in both air and water temperature.  Air temperature that is too hot may cause a difficulty of breathing; water temperature that is not hot may blister the sensitive skin. Or temperatures that are too cool may encourage colds. I had to learn that even though I monitored our baby carefully, do not dress the baby or child based on your comfort levels. Babies have a tendency to be a little “hot natured”. You may see them kicking off blankets or working out of socks. Check their hands and feet to see if they feel cool to your touch. That is a good indicator or the level of clothes that may be needed to meet their needs.

Taste is very strong because an infant has taste buds in its whole mouth not just on its tongue. Now, as the baby grows up the taste buds then become limited to the tongue but the sense of taste is very strong and the taste buds are very sensitive to the slightest seasoning.   Foods that you introduce to them early in life needs to be reintroduced later. As the child’s taste buds change, so does their taste and determination of “like” or “dislike”. As parents, we tend to limit the foods that we introduce to our children based on our taste and likes. Please open up the possibilities with food. Present foods to your children that vary in texture, color and spice. 

Sight and hearing work together during the early months because the eyes are blurry at the beginning and the rods and cones don’t work as well so black and white sight begins and then the colors are added to sight as the eye develops.  Depth perception does not develop in the beginning and is added even after the colors are introduced. During the sight development time, hearing is very important. It is during the early years…. Volume needs to be monitored and controlled. The hearing brings in a lot of information about the child’s surrounds, the atmosphere or tone of the room. The mood of the adult that  is interacting  with the child. With the fragile bones in the ear adjusting to the level of activity in the new world outside the womb, it is suggested that you limit the volume of noise and again gradually increase the stimulus and volume.

Knowing that the baby in your arms in constantly collecting data and learning, even when you think that they are not paying attention needs to bring cautious to the activities that are conducted in the baby and child’s presence.  At all times, act as though they are watching.

Before the child speaks, the vocabulary in building up and stored in the brain. Now… this vocabulary can be received from television, conversations that they hear, radio and direct interaction. They are not learning just from the one-on-one time that you think that the child is listening.  You may be surprised with the words that come out of their mouth when they begin to speak. It is not pleasant to see and hear out “no so good side” in our children.  So… with that in mind remember that we have the opportunity as parents to support and bring up Godly children in the light of God’s word.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord    Ephesians 6:4 NIV

An idle Mind is the Devils' workshop.....

And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.  1 Timothy 5:13 NKJV

What can parents do today to instill a work ethic and give a child a sense of self worth and accomplishment? We have students that do not feel that they are able to DO anything with their hands that is not associated to a hand held game or technology. I have met students that do not have any responsibility for the running of the home in which they live and some students that respond to the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” With the reply: “retire”.
I see very tired parents trying to work 2+ jobs and keep things running on the home front and children with nothing to occupy their time and thoughts productively.  My solution…. Keep them busy. When all else fails, pick up rocks or dig a hole and fill it back in. There needs to be some way that children can productively release some of their energy and burn some calories. Work is good….. A lot of free time can be bad…..
Growing up on a farm, we were always busy. When my parents did not have anything for us to do, I think that they dreamed of things for us to do. My children will probably say the same thing about us. The Puryear farm was also a place that always had work or chores to do.  The proverb     “An idle mind is the devils’ workshop” was branded into my brain and became the back bone that built my work ethic.  My parents made sure that I was constantly checking off the list of chores and that time was well scheduled and organized.  Now…. Because that proverb was branded into my very essence… you guessed it…. My children were introduced and taught to live by the same proverb.
I am not talking about, sports, classes, tutoring, band and other scheduled extracurricular activities. Yes… we did participate in extracurricular school activities and we were also very active in church and community activities.  I am talking about chores that assist in keeping the house hold moving forward. Chores that MUST be completed before you eat dinner or go to bed. There was always something that had to be done at the house. My children were second generation dish washers,  television remotes, mail delivers,  window washers, lawn keepers, painters and were called upon to complete any other job that needed to be completed during the 23 years that they lived at home.  Yes… you guessed it again….. in the Puryear house… we had those darn chores too. My girls did their own laundry, took turns cooking dinner and received their very own checking account with a set monthly allowance deposit, as a Christmas present when they were 13 years of age. During the middle school years, we added horse showing to our family farm activities. Oh my…. The chores did add to the agenda after that. We added hay bailing and hauling. Stall cleaning, horse riding, pasture mowing, riding ring maintenance and I bet they too, thought just like I did when I was their age, that MOM  must have dreamed of things for them to do to keep them busy.
Working with your children while they live at home, under your care, is the perfect time to teach time management, survival skills and money management.  Yes…. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to teach the impossible when we worked with some task. But, even on our crazy days, we tried to have fun and make the best of the task at hand. The girls would even laugh as we drove the gator around the pasture to pick up rocks on one of the days we were out of school during spring break. Yes… I said rocks. 
I know there are many definitions to the word Idle when you begin to analyze this motivating phrase. My second generation interpretation of the phrase that was passed to me as a child and was handed to my girls’ states that “idleness means you have no particular goal in mind and that you can be easily distracted”.  My parents took this definition in conjunction with II Thessalonians 3:10-12,

"For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread"

very literally and made sure that we learned through experience to stay focused on a job until it was completed and we also learned how to schedule our time on task to complete long day-after day task that needed larger amounts of time to complete.

When my girls were just beginning to walk, I purchased a child sized “grocery cart”  and each evening it was their job to pick up all of their toys and carry them to the toy box in the closet for storage. Oh such a simple task… but a lesson learned and carried out into older childhood and adulthood. Each night, the house was picked up and organized, for the next day, before turning in for bed. Each person had their books for school packed, clothes picked out for morning, and each needed event materials loaded in the “car bag”. An example… piano books, band instrument, dance shoes etc… were loaded in the car bag so that needed extracurricular supplies were on hand.

God uses work and responsibility to build our character and strength. I want to leave you with one lesson that I learned in my school science classroom one year. Each year, in my science classroom, I would hatch chickens. The local Clemson county extension agent would bring the incubator and the eggs to hatch. The first time that I watched the eggs hatch… the students saw the chicks struggling to crack and remove the egg shell and they asked to help a few. I consented and allowed the students to “help” the chicks and make the hatching progress easier and thus the chicks were free from the egg faster. Guess what? The chicks that the students helped did not live as long as the chicks that were allowed to remove the egg shell by themselves.  The “helped” chicks were weak and did not fare as well. The chicks that we did not assist, had to work to get the shell removed and that struggle build up their strength and those stronger chicks, out lived the assisted ones. That told me right then and there that God builds character with struggles and work. We become stronger individuals when we work through complications and struggles.

When I compare this lesson as an analogy to my girls…. I wanted my girls to grow up to be strong independent adults. While they were living at home, I felt that it was my responsibility to give them opportunities to work and develop in a safe environment. They were allowed to try jobs, learn how to do new task and all the time, have the safe haven that if they failed we would be there to assist and pick up the pieces. I have helped balance bank statements, paid over draft fees, eaten burned dinners, eaten meals that did not taste right, bought new clothes to replace the washing machine and dryer mishaps and supported decisions that were made by my girls. I felt like that was my job as a parent.

I challenge young parents  to find an avenue that you can use to give your child chores, challenge the mind and give them the support when they fail NOT if they fail.  What can you do as a parent to assist your child and help prepare him/her for adulthood and “real world situations”?  We need strong adults!! This is learned when we give opportunities to help build confidence and character in  our children.