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Prepare Your Children For The Weddings Here On Earth And For The One To Come
Don’t you just love to be a guest at a wedding? It’s the opportunity to get dressed up special to witness a moment in someone’s life that not all people are privy to. You have to be specially invited in order to go. I am always anticipating the reception with all the food, cake (hopefully chocolate), and wonderful music, dancing, and celebration with friends and family and the happy couple.
I love the way Jesus uses stories in the bible to relay a deeper truth to us. The story of the ten virgins or bridesmaids, found in Matthew 25:1-13 is one of my favorites. Although Jesus meant for this parable to give us insight into being ever ready for his coming again, I love to use this story with my children in other practical ways that apply to where they are. Don’t you just love the duality of God’s word? It can have both spiritual and Earthly living applicability.
Over the years, and especially during that tricky transition between elementary and middle school, I have used this story to convey the benefits of being ready to my children. There is a lot more responsibility involved on the children’s part and a lot less parental involvement as the children transition between 5th and 6th grades. In middle school, kids don’t just have one class and teacher anymore; they have several. They have to learn to juggle, books, materials, homework, different classes, different teachers with different personalities and differing expectations. This is a great introduction to what the world is really like. They need to come to class prepared with their assignments finished and with a newfound maturity ready to learn or at least not be a distraction.
This is the age when many detentions are given, whether for behavior, for being late too much, not being appropriately dressed, being constantly unprepared, etc. It is also the time when kids start actually talking to their teachers, (Scary! Especially because they have been used to us fixing problems for them in the past.) in order to clear up matters such as: late assignments, missed work, extra credit, or needing help with work their parents may not be able to or have time to help them with.
And this is how it should be. We can’t be with our children all the time and we have to get them prepared to live in the real world. I once heard someone say, “I’m not raising children, I’m trying to raise functional adults that I can send out into the world and have peace of mind in knowing that I have done all I can in preparing them for what is to come.” If you have had the experience to live on your own in this world, you understand what this means. Our children need to be prepared both spiritually and practically.
Each of my three children have gotten the “ten virgins, wedding story”, at some point in their junior high experience. After reading the story with them, I get the great pleasure of asking, do you think weddings would be fun to go to? Wouldn’t you like to be invited to a fantastic wedding, where all your family and friends will be in attendance, where there might be a flowing chocolate fountain to dip fresh sweet fruit into, enjoy a big meal, eat fancy cake, and dance to beautiful music in great celebration? They always respond with, yes! This is a great segue for where I want them to go with me.
Then I remind them of the five bridesmaids that were not prepared and did not get to enter the wedding reception with the groom when he arrived. They were not even there when he came. I also point out that the five who were prepared were able to enter with him right away. That’s when I relate this story to where my children’s world is.
I tell them, if you aren’t responsible with time management and organized or exhibiting self-control, whatever the case may have been with that particular child, then you might not get an opportunity to go to the wedding (have a play-date or sleep-over with a friend, go to a birthday party, go to the movies with grandma, play videogames or watch TV, etc.), even if you have been invited. Then I try to relate that to even bigger future opportunities that may lie before them and how those opportunities may be missed or not even offered if they are not prepared (college acceptance, career advancement, how important character and integrity are and whether others can see that in them, appeal for a suitable mate).
I’d like to challenge all Christian mothers and fathers to seek the Word for practical application to their children’s specific needs. His Word always provides. I long for the day when my children’s biggest complaint about me will be, that I always found a Bible story to relate to whatever they might have been going through at any given moment in their lives.
Copyright © 2008-2015 Christina Messer
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