Oh Be Careful....

What kinds of kiddos do your kiddos hang around? Do you listen to them as they engage in playful conversation? Do you watch to see how they play when they are playing with playmates?

I ask those questions to spark some thoughts.

I want to get you thinking.

I encourage you to be cautiously mindful of the company your children keep because even slightly negative influences can wreak havoc on the sensitive character of even the most positive of child.

With the pressures of socialization on the rise it can become a little intense as we seek out children for our children to socialize with and even for us adults too. Trying to find children of good morals, character and values can be as complicated as finding a needle in a hay stack. We can, through outside pressures, give in to desperation and allow our children to be inflicted with unnecessary negative and ungodly influences that will over time corrupt our children’s good morals.

Your children are so precious and have such a powerful unique destiny that I promise you the enemy has them targeted. He uses the influence of others to get to them, to corrupt them, and to poison them.

I am saying this in love. I’m not judging others. I’m simply being honestly raw and real with you.

We are responsible for the making and/or breaking of our children’s character. We have got to take our children’s personal experiences with others very seriously. Our children are vulnerable, tender and sensitive to the opinions and lifestyles of others.

Never let society determine what is best for you, your children and your family even if that means that your children’s interactions are with more adults then that of children for a season. It’s ok and your children will only grow from that experience.

 I encourage you to think of the children that your children hang around as pills. Do that with the adults you hang around too. Look at every person as a pill. Now, that may sound silly but let me stretch your thinking and explain what I mean by that. I truly believe that every person, adult and child, is like a pill. They are vessels carrying either life or death. Imagine, if you will, vitamins and small doses of rat poison. Even the slightest contact provides us with either a boost of life or a little dose of death. Now, you would never allow your child to open a container of rat poison and eat a pebble from the package. Of course not, that would make them sick and over time they would die. The same is true for vitamins as a little dose here and there over time strengthens and builds the immune system. The people, even children, that your children are exposed to provide the exact same life or death experience on your children’s character.

Think of your children as a new seedling freshly sprung out of the ground and stretching upward toward the heat of the noon day sun. You’d never allow someone to come in and stomp on, squish or pour weed killer all over your new spring buds, but in the same way until your child is of adult age they are just as sensitive, tender and vulnerable to negative experiences as those precious new spring buds.

We are to love, nourish and cherish all children and reach out in love to them but your childrens character should never be neglected in your trying to reach another child. Your child comes first! It is your job to be cautiously mindful and diligent to what they experience. That does not mean that you live in fear, it means that you live in faith, believing and continually praying for the Lord to supply exactly the right influences for your children. And, in doing that you are by all means raising up an army of mighty warriors.

What I am suggesting is in no way an easy task and you will have people who blare at you that you are self-righteous, judgmental, and nasty. Expect it… it is going to happen. Most of the time when you take a righteous stand there will be those who question, doubt and have an array of controversial opinions opposing what you are doing. And, you know what… that’s ok. I encourage you to keep on keep’n on and watch out for the tender souls that the Lord has placed in your care. Those precious souls that you tuck in each night are the ones that you will give an account for not the others that you will meet along the way. That may sound harsh, but it is true. He has not called you to raise all the children you come in contact with. I’m sorry, but it’s true. He does expect you however to rise to the challenge and raise the ones in your home with excellence. They are His champions! He has great plans for them! They are a peculiar people! Their path, their journey, will not and cannot be like that of everyone else. They are unique and precious!

This article is written by Tina Marie Eisenhart.

Tina Marie Eisenhart, is the mother of 5 beautiful kiddos ages 20, 17, 15, 13 & 2. She has worked with various aged children and youth most of her life but has been a dedicated home school mama and children’s ministry teacher/team leader for the last 18 years. Education and encouraging others are her most dynamic passions. She is an author and self proclaimed word nerd as writing is also one of her passions..