In a world gone mad. I shudder to think what the generation coming up will resemble in 5, 10 or even 20 years. Providing that time actually lasts that long.

I remember as a child growing up; running up and down the streets barefoot chasing dogs and rabbits. Riding bicycles until you got to tired to pedal anymore. The hot summer days with tromps through the woods or through my Granddads pasture, in search of a favorite pond or creek to swim in. Fishing polls baited with stinky cheese trying to lure catfish out of hiding holes.

Cicadas announcing the time to go home as dusk fell softly and silently around you.

Never once was the idea of looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed. The only thing that possibly would be following me would have been a squirrel, a bird and maybe a snake, yikes.

I remember glass jars filled with fireflies, circling round in them by the dozens. Long dirt roads, warm breezes and watermelon seed spitting contest between friends. Climbing trees in search of mistletoe, trying to catch crawdads with peanut butter, waiting for fresh out of the oven pound cake & ice cold homemade ice cream. Shelling peas until your fingers turned purple or snapping green beans until your fingers fell off.

I remember hot days riding on tractor wheels during haying season, then long rides back through the pastures on hay bails. Feeding cows out of my hands while they walked behind the truck. Playing in the hay barn while making tunnels in the hay.

Memories, every single one of them good and pleasant. The days of my childhood were adventures of kings and queens in far away palaces, cowboys and Indians and Lassie. I dreamed of castles in far away lands, white knights and beautiful princesses.

When I was child Barbie wasn’t the latest greatest pop idol, she was a normal girl like me. Raggedy Ann was my doll of choice because we weren’t concerned with perfection. We played games that actually could be felt with your hands. Dice you had to throw or wheels you had to spin with little tokens that moved around the boards. Play money, fake hotels and Broadway.

My childhood consisted of Vacation Bible School, a couple of weeks at the beach and/or lake. Cottage prayer meetings that lasted for hours followed by Revivals that went on for days.

Everyone was close, everyone knew each other, we all knew the kids, we all knew the moms and dads. We were a great big family.

Where have all those days gone? It seems as if those times have been swallowed up in a time warp.

Imaginary friends that once were made up in the mind have shifted to virtual reality worlds, that can be played out on a screens. Conversations on back porches have been closed up behind walled fences and locked gates. It consist at a desk in front of computers, where it’s easy to hide behind fake pictures and non existent lives.  

If that weren’t enough, gone are the outdoor BBQ’s, gathered around watermelons and ice cold lemonade. Swatting mosquitoes and shooing flies away. Thumping ants off picnic tables, trying to catch napkins blowing in the summer breezes.

Our doors are locked our guns are loaded. We wait behind walled fortress as if the boogie man was going to leap up suddenly as snatch us away. Sadly enough ,in this day he just might.

As if time opened a long ago read book, I have been remembering my childhood recently. Maybe because my son is growing up and as the last of four, its sort of a melancholy feeling. I have a ache in my heart for him, because he has not been able to experience the childhood that I did.

His world consist of video games, DVD, and Wi-Fi. Not that he doesn’t like to play outside, because he loves to do that. It’s just that he can’t stay out by himself. Some child predator may snatch him out of our yard if I turn my eyes away for a minute. He can’t ride his bike down the street, he might get run over by someone who could care less.

The world he is growing up in is cold, heartless and greedy. The light of God’s Word is extremely hard to find. More and more people striving to be number one, no matter what the cost are.

I wonder as a mom, how I can instill in Him the values I grew up with? How can I show him there is good in people when every where you look, people push to get ahead, while trouncing upon others in the process.

So, I pray, I teach him about God’s love and how much God desires for us to walk with Him. I teach him to memorize scriptures because there is coming a day when he will need it more than ever. I challenge him to pray and be thankful, because God has blessed him so much. I constantly lift his life and the life of all my children, before the Lord and I watch to see if in this messed up world he will get the Truth of God’s love. If he will see that God’s word is indeed a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.

Then in absolute awe of my creator, my husband says to me, did J tell you what he wants to do? ” I said “no” he hasn’t?

Jared had a apple at school the other day. They are learning about Johnny Appleseed so they were each given an apple.

 My little man loves apples, but on this particular day he had something else entirely in mind as he ate that apple. When he finished his apple, he put those seeds in his backpack and brought then home. He asked his dad if he could plant the seeds? This is not something new for him to ask? He loves to plant something, even if he doesn’t know it has no chance of growing. He is tenacious in his belief that if you plant it, it will grow something.

So, my husband was trying to tell him that the seeds would not be able to grow, little did my husband realize that God was at work in our son’s heart, when Jared interrupted him and said, “but dad, I want to plant the apple seed by the bridge so that it can grow apples for the homeless men living under the bridge” My husband, tears in his eyes, said Come on son, let’s go plant that apple seed.

The seeds will never grow, unless by some miracle of God, of which I have no doubt he could do. But the seed of God planted in my little son’s heart is growing. It’s growing despite the attempts of the enemy to make his world as dark as possible. It’s growing and one day, one day my sweet, tenderhearted  little Jared will be a grown man. If I keep planting God’s Word in his heart I’m believing the little sweetheart who wants to plant a tree for the homeless, will help to feed the nations!

Then I realized that our childhood experiences are miles apart in content, but it is the same God who watched over me as a child that watches over my son just the same. For whatever reason I was born in the time I was and so is Jared. His purpose and his destiny different from mine. The only thing I am required as a mom to do is to train him up in the way he should go. So that when he is old ,he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Should I relax? No way, the enemy would love nothing more than to rob my son of his innocent childhood. I on the other hand will continue to teach him to see the good in those around him and to love them as Christ loves them. I will continue to teach him to give to those who have not, and to weep with those who are sad. While I am doing that,  God will take care of his heart. My son will look back on his childhood and will say to his little ones one day,  I remember when…

 My mommas heart, turned grandmother by then, will remember the sweet little boy who had  wanted to grow a tree to feed a couple of grown men, is now planting seeds in his own little ones for God.

I will go to my closet and I will fall on my knees and thank God for the honor of being a  mom. For the honor of watching all of my children grow into mature sons and daughters of God.

One day my book of life will close, and they’ll gather around my grave. I am hoping that the legacy I leave behind will show the strongest in my children. I am hoping that when you see them you will see Jesus because their mom loved them and showed them the way.

It’s not always about good old memories as awesome as those are. It’s about what you do in the lives God has entrusted you with. Those are the memories that last, those are the memories that mean something. Those are the moments that count.


I’m hid with Christ!
Shawn