PS from yesterday <3
Happy Friday, my friends!
My post today is pulled from the great guest post Russ did yesterday. If you haven’t read it, please visit here…https://www.laurareimer.net/a-guest-post-from-my-favorite-3/
First off, if Russ had not sent that to me, you would not have heard about it. It was his story to share or not share. When it happened, I was sitting there in the passenger seat thinking of how often I pick up my phone at stop lights or on stretches of road to check a text, enter navigation or whatever.
I felt sad for him, but knew it could have been me easily. I knew he was embarrassed and never would have dreamed he would so willingly share with you all and I couldn’t love him more for it.
One of the paragraphs he wrote gripped me and so I want to expand on that today. Here is what he wrote:
“We remind our grandchildren that mistakes can happen and that we need to learn from them. There can be a detention, a poor test score, a missed basket on an easy play or a relationship that has been damaged.” _ Russ
He is so right.
We talk about choices and consequences ad nauseam with our grandchildren as we did our own three. Russ and I have the unique perspective of being actively involved in their daily lives a couple of days a week when mommy and daddy are both working.
This has been a tremendous blessing of sharing in their daily lives that is the answer of the cry of my heart as a child to be close to family and not only see them once in a blue moon.
However, with every blessing comes responsibility and because we are managing homework, free time, chores, sibling rivalry and all the things, we often have to flex from grandparent to parent.
Our efforts are to not override the rules of the house, but to keep things as even keel as we can. Plus, we often throw in our own bits of wisdom that we earned along with our gray hairs and wrinkles.
So yes, choices and consequences are a big chunk of our material.
But what keeps tugging at my heart and brining a tear to my eye and a prayer of gratitude to God that He sent me Russ to be my life partner is that Russ lives openly that teaching.
In humility, he shared a lesson learned to help others. And that is such a strong example for the little eyes, ears and hearts we have been given a season to influence. This was a double lesson; not just about driving but about living.
As I told Russ, we all make mistakes. Accepting responsibility and the consequences is the path to growth and wisdom. But there is more… when we acknowledge and own our own errors, we can understand when others make mistakes that it could have been us; we learn to extend grace.
Our prayer when raising our children was that they would learn most from our example; which kept us on our toes and our knees. That prayer continues into a new generation.
God bless you all as you enjoy this lovely day and weekend.