The Needs of Others

Character building in our children should be pretty high on the priority list for a focused family. Character is; however, one of those things that cannot be taught merely from a textbook. For our children to gain godly character they must see it in others.

They might see it in a Sunday School teacher or someone else at church. It might be picked up from a neighbor or family friend. But the people they live with are the ones that they hear the words and see the actions day in and day out. One of the challenges of homeschooling is that our children are home with us most of the time. What that means is if I misrepresent something to someone, the children take note. If I am lazy, guess who else becomes slow? You will notice that I am saying if because none of us are ever these things, right? Let's say that they catch us doing something good.

I'll give credit to Dawn for this one because I know that she is constantly speaking of the needs of others. I'll give credit to God as well because I see Him at work in the lives of my children. Here is the real story that I want to tell.

Through some friends at church we learned that a young lady in another community was struggling with a brain tumor. This was going on the same time that I was going through chemotherapy, so we it hit a little closer to home than usual. She and her husband have, I think, two small girls as well. Once we found out about this family, we began to pray for them at meal times. Over time there was no hope given for recovery, and then the young mother passed away.

Our prayers have changed now for their family. Grace, at five, still prays for the girls. Our oldest girls Abigail and Hannah recently chose to go beyond. It is OK to be proud of our children isn't it? The girls the other day gave two gift bags to our friend at church to give to the girls who lost their mother. As they showed me the bags the other day, I thought of character. Is character really worth much without action? When caring takes action it begins to minister to another. It touches a life. It says, "you are not alone."

God cared enough for the lost human race that He did something about it. What if He just would have sat in heaven and said, "What a pity for all those poor lost souls"? God's character is active and obvious. How do you measure character?

Bryan