Prayyior's God Talk

I truly hope that if you are the Mother of little kids, you will get a chance to watch the movie shown on Dish this past week.  It may be available elsewhere but that is where I saw it.

The movie I am talking about is “Gifted Hands”, The Ben Carson Story.

WOW…just WOW!  What an amazing story.  This story is the story of Dr. Ben Carson…and I do not want to take anything away from all he accomplished and how far he has come.  He is the Man who spoke at a Prayer Breakfast and relayed the difficulties of the Obamacare system in front of the President.  When that speech took place you could almost feel the cringing the President must have felt.  It felt really good to most of the rest of America, but I am sure there was some screaming in the Whitehouse when the cameras were turned off.

It was this speech which raised awareness of this quiet and thoughtful man who loves the Lord God Almighty and cares about the people of America and the world.

Today, I just want to talk about Ben Carson’s Mother.  I watched the entire movie, but at this point I don’t even remember her name, but I do remember her.

It was Ben Carson’s Mother’s story that made me think…I wish with my whole heart I could go back to the days when my kids were little and have the gumption to fight for her kids like she did.

She had every disadvantage, but despite being a Mother at 13, and eventually stuck with raising kids alone, without any education.  Her work would be keeping house for someone “with” money, to provide for those two boys.

Ben’s Mother never pitied herself or her situation.  She had a pride about her, that spoke volumes, that made you straighter your spine, that made you say to yourself…”YOU HAVE NOTHING TO EVER FEEL STEPPED ON”.

You could watch how her boys were beginning to run with the crowd of kids who were troublemakers and would end up in life as losers and criminals.

She was not about to put up with that.  She was the head of that household.  She was the one who was tasked with raising responsible kids that “could do anything, and better” than anyone else.  She was the one who determined that TV was a “future stealer”, probably just like Video games are “future stealers” today.

She pulled the plug!  Never mind what “all the other kids got to do!”  She made sure those boys did their homework.  She insisted they were smart enough to get good grades.  She made sure they broadened their horizon by insisting they read two books a week and write a report on them.  She couldn’t read the reports or the books they read, but they didn’t know that.  She always said…”You will have to sound it out”…I don’t have reading glasses.  Yes, she was not about to admit she couldn’t read and eventually learned in her later years to read.

She taught those kids, that they could do anything.  She taught them that hard work is what it takes to be successful.  She taught them that Jesus loves them, and they needed to do more than just acknowledge that he exists.  She taught them that a personal relationship with Him is essential.  She taught them that the mind they were born with had the capacity to remember, to memorize, to recall what they had read and what they had learned.

I love this Mother!  I am honored that I got to see her story in the middle of Dr. Ben Carson’s Life Story.

If I had little kids now…I would be much better equipped to stand up to the world and the false narratives that tell us that we have to let our kids learn at their own pace.  I would not put up with grades that weren’t as good as “I thought they should be!”  I would never let my child drop out of school because of someone bullying them, or teachers that told them they would never amount to anything.  I would not let my children spend near as much time with friends and insist they make friends with books.

I don’t get to raise my children all over again.  I will never have more children to raise.  But if I did, I would do better than I did.

It is true that we all do the best we can at the time.  That is true.  I did the best I could raising my Children.  I do wish I had intervened more in their lives, been more responsible, encouraged more, said “no” more…but overall, My Children have grown into adults that I am incredibly proud of, even without the skills of parenting I wish I would have had.  They have done well.  I am honored that they think I was and am a great Mother.  I am honored that their friends spent hours in our home and called me Mom and ate our food.

I think there will always be regrets, when we look back on our lives.  There is, however, no condemnation from God, about what I did and how I raised them.  I am honored that God gave me children to love.

Today, I have to encourage you to think about how you are raising your kids.  Don’t get so busy taking care of them, to not realize what you are teaching them.  Take time today…YES…Today, to sit down and decide what it is you want them to grow up knowing and then devise a plan to accomplish that.

That is the most important thing you can do TODAY….Tomorrow….Time to start on the plan!  You can do this…