O Master, make me a better parent.
Teach me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, and to answer all the questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them, talking back to them, and contradicting them. make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me. Give me the courage to confess my sins against my children as to ask them forgiveness, when I know that I have done them a wrong.
May I not vainly hurt the feelings of my children. Forbid that I should laugh at their mistakes or resort to shame and ridicule as a punishment. Let me not tempt my child to lie and steal. So guide me hour by hour that I may demonstrate by all I say and do that honesty produces happiness.
Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. May I cease to nag; and when I am out or sorts, help me to hold my tongue.
Blind me to the little errors of children and help me to see the good things that they do. Give me a ready word for honest praise.
Help me grow up with my children, to treat them as would those of their own age; but let me not exact them in judgment and conventions of adults. Allow me not to rob them of the opportunity to wait upon them selves, to think, to choose, and to make decisions.
Forbid that I should ever punish them for my selfish satisfaction. May I grant them all their wishes that are reasonable, and have the courage always to withhold a privilege which I know will do them harm.
Make me so fair and just, so considerate and companionable to my children, that they will have a genuine esteem for me. Fit me to be loved and imitated.
With all Thy gifts, O great Master, give me calm, poise, and self-control.
By Garry Cleveland Myers,Ph.D
Travis' grandma Sereal gave us this when Audrey was born. It has been a great poem for me to refer back to through out the years. I really do feel like Audrey has a wise soul. She is already so friendly, loving and remembers everything about everyone, and it seems as if she genuinely cares about people. Even at two. I really try to treat her like we were best friends in heaven and that we just loved each other so much that we just HAD to be together again. But sometimes the fact that she is a crazy person gets in the way of my being on my best behavior all of the time and I sometimes find myself getting embarrassed.
My grandma Brown told me once, when I was like seven, that she felt like I had an "old soul" and that my spirit may even be older than she is. She said that we may have been great friends in heaven she just chose to come down at an earlier time, but that because we were such great friends I really wanted to be close to her when it was my turn so I came down as her granddaughter.
My grandmother and I really have a lot in common and have always been close. I have found that I really relate to her. I was the first grand child to be born and I really do think that it wasn't by chance. I do believe that we don't necessarily "choose" our parents, but I do believe that sometimes we do. I do believe that we developed great relationships in the life before this and some of the people that are in our families are there because we couldn't get through life with out them, and a chance couldn't be taken that we would at some point meet.
Kinda deep for a blog entry, but like I said in the disclaimer of this blog...this is a pseudo journal. And a place to bounce ideas off of etc...
you even stand it?!
