KTAB – 9/19/07 - The Way Things Work

I realized the other day that I’ve been doing these interviews for over a year and a half, now, and talked about handling stress, taking good care of yourself, denial and how it works, boundaries and boundary problems, and helping our kids have good boundaries.

When I think about it, all the things I’ve talked about bring me back to the importance of knowing what’s really TRUE, and acting on it, being on the right track, living your life and making decisions based on the way things really are, and how things really work, in the real world. Knowing and facing the TRUTH is really important.

I really think that a father's and mother's primary job as parents, other than modeling God’s love to each other and to their children, is to prepare them for life by teaching AND showing them how things are and work in the real world, and then helping them learn how to survive and thrive there – as real people in the real world. Other people who come along have an impact too, brothers and sisters, grandparents, teachers, even coaches.

But, as a parent, I am the first and primary channel for truth to my child, I am the one who translates, who interprets, the happenings in this world to them before they even have words. Their deepest, most thoroughly entrenched view of the world and how things work comes through me, out of my view of the world.

What our kids need most from us, is that we be as healthy and on-balance and in touch with reality as we can be ourselves, to show them how it’s done, this living in the real world. It doesn’t have to be perfect – just good enough to show them how to figure it out for themselves.

That’s what I really appreciate about the Serenity Prayer below, especially the full version: It reminds us to see and face things as they are and then take action to change them for the better.


God grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things that I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.


Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;


Trusting that You will make all things right
If I surrender to your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and
Supremely happy with You in the next.

Amen

by Reinhold Niehbur