Roots growing deeper, wider - provide greater stability to the plants structure and greater access to the nutrition the plant must draw from the soil. Parents are (or should be) to children what roots are to plants. Our children need to be nourished if they are to grow, flower and weather the seasons of life. Children need to understand they are of value - know they are loved - that they are of God, something sacred.
Parents must not only teach and become examples of truth, they must lay emphasis on the value and importance of education. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us that “the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically… Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”
Education doesn’t start and stop in school - rather education is eternal, with us always. Children learn from parents as plants are fed from the soil, for parents prepare the soil of education. If one poisons the soil with chemicals, plants will suffer, wilt and in many case die. If parents poison the soil of life with racism, anger, and ignorance, their children will fade and fail to flower.
Mohandas Gandhi - sharing his understanding of life and love - stated “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” It will be our children who - when educated, convinced of the value of those who surround them, and understand the futility of hatred - will change this world and reimage it in hope, faith and love.
Visit your child’s room tonight - after they are asleep - kneel by them. Marvel at the gift you have been given, inhale the peace which surrounds them as they sleep. Kiss them gently and leave the room. Understand from that point on that you are their soil, you are their roots, you are their hope.
God bless the world’s children.
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