“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much.” ~Lisa Wingate

A few week ago I was blessed to be able to travel to Tennessee to spend some time with sweet Lydia and her parents.  Lydia and I had some wonderful moments together throughout that week.  She was a big helper as we went to the paint store in helping to pick out perfect paint samples...

Every morning that I was there began the same way... Lydia woke up around six o'clock, and we would snuggle up with a cup of apple juice and a blanket, and spend a little FaceTime with Pappy.  Some mornings we read books together, while other days we would just quietly snuggle as Mimi soaked in every moment.  I made a deliberate attempt to file in my memory the feel, the smell, and the sound of this sweet little soul.

Some days were cold and rainy, and we enjoyed inside play time on those days...

We did silly things like her new "dance," which her mama named "fast feet..."

We put picnic tablecloths on our heads, and ran around the house wearing our cool shades. 

We also got to play outside on days that were sunny.  We "fed" the ceramic bunnies, ran up and down the driveway, watched birds in the trees, picked up sticks, and listened to dogs barking down the street...

But the most memorable times of the week were those moments when Lydia showed me that she's learning what her parents are being so faithful and consistent at teaching her about God.  It began on Sunday morning.  As the Lord's Supper was served, and I held Lydia in my lap, she watched intently as I drank the fruit of the vine... then she proceeded to put her tiny fingers up to her paci, tilt her head back, and pretend to do exactly what I had just done.  Later on, she faced forward on my lap as we sang "He Leadeth Me," and even though she can only speak a few recognizable words, she "sang" her little heart out.  Worshipping God with her parents is something that is a priority in her family, and she's learning to love God and His people.  And even though she does not comprehend all that is involved, she is learning to worship her Creator.

Each evening since Lydia has been old enough to be awake consistently at seven o'clock, her parents have made her bedtime ritual the same... They read a story from her Bible, sing a Bible song, and pray before she goes to bed.  Lydia knows the routine well.

On the last day of my most recent visit, Lydia repeatedly picked up her Bible and would "read" it for herself...  She would flip through the pages, sometimes quickly, other times stopping to consider a specific "passage," and she did this throughout the entire day.
But what impressed me most about that was what she would do each time she finished "reading" a particular Bible story.  As is her custom at bedtime with Mommy and Daddy, Lydia would close her Bible, fold her hands, and look at me expectantly . . . she wanted to pray.  And pray we did!  I honestly cannot tell you how many times we prayed that day, because I lost count!  But every time she closed her Bible, that's exactly what she wanted to do - every single time.

As the quote at the beginning of this post so succinctly states, it is a heavy responsibility to be a parent.  God gives us these precious souls that are pure and clean, and entrusts us with the obligation of molding them into God-fearing, Christ-following adults.  Ultimately, each child will grow up and make their own decision about serving God.  But what we do in those early, formative years as parents can make a world of difference.

So parents - and grandparents - what you do today matters.  Teach them to worship, to spend time in God's word, and to pray.  More importantly, do those things yourself.  You cannot give away what you do not possess.  And when faced with choices between spiritual things and physical things, always choose the spiritual.  Gospel meeting or baseball game?  What about Wednesday evening Bible study or homework?  Is God, His service, and His people a priority in your home?  (Many times we can make a creative effort to allow our children to participate in wholesome secular activities that initially appear to conflict with the spiritual by taking some extra steps - ask me about chasing the band bus down the interstate sometime!)  It matters a lot less what we say than what we do.  Our children will know what comes first by our actions and choices.

We all make mistakes in parenting.  My kids can certainly give you their lists of my shortcomings.  But may our children never be able to say that we did not consistently put God first in our homes.   Nothing else will ever matter more.