“But the most important thing I learned from Mom is that nothing is more precious or sacred than doing God’s will.” Kenneth W. Hagin
If there was one thing that you learnt from your mother or parents, what would that one thing be?
I was taken back to my growing years as I read RonkePosh’s post about contentment in her Facebook group this morning.
In that post, she talked about the need to teach and model contentment to your children.
And looking back, I realised that if there was one thing I grew up learning from my mother, it was contentment. She was always content with whatever she had.
Never for once did I see her sweating over not having the latest fabrics, borrowing clothes to wear, or putting herself under undue pressure just to keep up with the Joneses. Never!
She was always happy with whatever she had and never envied anyone because she did not have what they have. Years have passed and she is still as content as you can be. And it was only natural for us her children to pick up that value from her.
Today, you get to see mothers trying very hard to keep up with the JONESES on a daily basis. Some now live a very different life on social media and will go any length just to fit in with the crowd.
Some mothers have also thrown certain worthy values away, not minding what the consequences of their actions will be in the future.
Did you know that values like hard-work, integrity, honesty, empathy and contentment have now taken the back seat in our journey as a nation?
Meanwhile things greed, corruption, fraud, cheating and lies are conveniently seated in the driver’s seat of many homes and offices in our country today.
I recently heard of a mother who sent money to her child in the University, to pay a lecturer to rewrite a failed course in his office. What happened to seating the child down and giving good counsel?
This led me to ask the question,
What are you really teaching your child?
Barack Obama has written severally about how the values that his mother taught him, have shaped him into the person that he is today.
He once shared about how his mother taught him empathy. In his words:
” My mother taught me empathy — the basic concept of standing in somebody else’s shoes and looking through their eyes.
If I did something messed up, she’d just say, ‘How would that make you feel if somebody did that to you?’
That ends up being, I think, at the center of my politics, and I think that should be the center of all our politics. If we see a child who’s languishing in an inner-city school, how would we feel if that was our child?”
Did you know that the values you teach or model to your child today, will remain with that child for the rest of his life?
Why do you think that a woman who grew up watching her mother pray and intercede in the middle of the night, naturally steps into that role when she becomes a mother herself?
Your guess is as good as mine. It was modelled to her by her mother.
So whether you are teaching or modelling integrity, courage, contentment, faith, love, hard-work and compassion, you must always remember that you are influencing the adult that your child will become tomorrow.
And while that unhealthy desire to have what others have at all cost, continues to hold sway in the hearts of many today, leading them along shaky paths.
I ask that you make that commitment today to always teach and model positive values to your children.
Will you dare to be a different parent and continue to teach your child what is right and what is wrong?
” The best way to teach a child is live an exemplary life.” Lailah Gifty Anita.
Ufuoma.
