All Hard Work Brings a Profit - Proverbs 4:23

Everytime Jerry and I dreamed about our children's futures, when they were small, the images always included, ease.  We wanted their lives to be easier than ours had been, their choices wiser, bringing them more opportunities and less failure.  We studied the tendencies of each child and tried to determine which way they were leaning so we could encourage them to grow that way (something I read about in one of my many James Dobson parenting books).  I touched on this subject in my last post and today I feel like addressing it again in the life of another adult child, our oldest son, Kody.

Now, here is a guy who has kept us guessing for all of his 33 years.  We have watched him steer his life off one path and on to another, like the Nascar races he loves to watch and "ease" has never been his destination.  As a child his imagination took him on horseback (a stick one) to wide open spaces.  On the very rare day that he wasn't outdoors, he wouldn't sit still through a whole story book or TV show, preferring instead to ride his stickhorse all around the house while playing his cowboy songs on the stereo.

As an adult he has tried his hand at many potential careers, but guess what he enjoys doing the most.  What kind of work do you think it is that brings him the most satisfaction and joy?  If you guessed working with horses you are right!  He still loves the outdoors, rarely sits down, and likes music (country) on the radio in the barns at chore time.  Kody manages and lives on an Arabian horse farm and also manages a non-profit educational working farm.

Ease is not a word that could ever be used to describe farming, but is it a wise choice for him?  Bringing him more opportunities and less failure?  Kody would be the only person that could truly answer these questions, but I have watched his life unfold and his humble, steadfast, hard work seems to be positioning him onto a path that God may have been preparing for him all along.  It does look slightly familiar and I can't wait to see where it takes him. 

The mother's heart is the child's classroom- Henry W. Beecher

This is a make believe passport from a church project in 1985...what do you think?  I found it in my Rademaker family archives the other day and it reminds me of two things: one, time goes by way too fast (but everybody over 40 knows that) and two, the heart of the child is the most important part to nurture.  I can't recall focusing on that as a young mom.  I became a grandmother before I trully understood the importance of  it, as expressed to me by the beautiful mother that this little girl grew up to be.  What I do recall when I look at this picture is a very petite little girl who loved playing school, going to school, and talking about school.  She was every Sunday School and Pre-school teacher's dream student.  At play, her baby dolls were tossed into their cradles as she dressed up in my t-shirts, belted her waist, and stumbled to "work" in my heels, as a teacher.  Well, today she is a teacher...a homeschool teacher with two students, a son in kindergarten and the other one a preschooler.  She has the nurturing of their hearts "down pat" and their little brother is  her favorite textbook for teaching the subjects of compassion and patience.

But, back to the picture.  Here's the thing: I thought I was seeing the makings of a scholar with a love for learning that wouldn't quit, and I was.  But deep in her heart, where no one could really see or predict, a plan was being placed by a power greater than all of us.  Her real live babies are anything but tossed aside, they are the center of her life, and she doesn't wear heels to the classroom either.  I saw a glimpse, but He saw the whole magnificent picture!