The Best Thing I've Read All Day

After catching up on some reading for my Shepherd's Call work- a couple of sentences from History's Golden Thread, packed full of ten dollar words like "eschatology", "typology", and "progressive incarnation", I needed a little breather.

So, I began a book of lighter content titled Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids by Turansky and Miller. The first few pages I found rather trite, but I gave it a few more pages to impress me. Impress me it did.

Here's a quote I may chew on for days from a father of eight named Mr. Porter:

"Families are made up of imperfect people," he began. "From infants to adults, each person has a tendency to make selfish choices. We've learned, though, that for every form of selfishness in a family there's an honor based solution. Honor thinks of what would please someone else and gives more than expected. It's putting someone else's needs above your own. Honor values others in tangible ways. Children can learn honor and so can parents. Sure, confrontation is till necessary, and discipline still takes work. But we've found that when we focus on developing honor, we see amazing results."

In all the struggles I've had in thirteen years of parenting, the best advice steadfastly comes back in positive form. Nagging doesn't honor. Getting louder and more angry doesn't honor. Force doesn't honor.

Honor is as clean and clear as a freshly bleached white cotton sheet blowing in a gentle breeze from a laundry line on a hot summer day- honoring relationships keep a constant bottom line of considering others at least equal or better than oneself and acting upon that belief. I'll be the person I'm made as this becomes my reality.