Gentleness, Patience and Love
I found this quote over at Here in the Bonny Glen, she's been posting a few quotes each week from this book. This one was particularly poignant for Mother's Day.
"Gentleness, patience, and love, are almost everything in education; especially to those helpless little creatures, who have just entered into a world where everything is new and strange to them. Gentleness is a sort of mild atmosphere; and it enters into a child's soul, like the sunshine into the rose-bud, slowly but surely expanding it into beauty and vigor."
—from The Mother's Book
by Lydia Maria Child
On Mother's Day we are rightfully remembered for our love and service to our family: the many meals cooked and clothes washed, books read, walks taken, conversations, hugs, kisses and tickles. Ironically, that is when sentiments like the quote above remind me of all the times I have failed. I probably fail in one of these virtues to some degree at least daily with at least one of the children. I forget how new they still are to the world. How much they don't know, how little, how (as simple as the concept seems I still forget) childish. I too often expect too much and forget that they are small. Perfection is too far a reach for them, as it is for me. My heavenly father remembers that I am weak, unable to live out the virtues of gentleness, patience and love perfectly. "He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." —Psalm 103:14 That helps me to put my expectations of them in perspective and seek to restore "the mild atmosphere". I thank God they are so quick to forgive, wanting as well to regain that atmosphere where they will grow best!
"Gentleness, patience, and love, are almost everything in education; especially to those helpless little creatures, who have just entered into a world where everything is new and strange to them. Gentleness is a sort of mild atmosphere; and it enters into a child's soul, like the sunshine into the rose-bud, slowly but surely expanding it into beauty and vigor."
—from The Mother's Book
by Lydia Maria Child
On Mother's Day we are rightfully remembered for our love and service to our family: the many meals cooked and clothes washed, books read, walks taken, conversations, hugs, kisses and tickles. Ironically, that is when sentiments like the quote above remind me of all the times I have failed. I probably fail in one of these virtues to some degree at least daily with at least one of the children. I forget how new they still are to the world. How much they don't know, how little, how (as simple as the concept seems I still forget) childish. I too often expect too much and forget that they are small. Perfection is too far a reach for them, as it is for me. My heavenly father remembers that I am weak, unable to live out the virtues of gentleness, patience and love perfectly. "He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." —Psalm 103:14 That helps me to put my expectations of them in perspective and seek to restore "the mild atmosphere". I thank God they are so quick to forgive, wanting as well to regain that atmosphere where they will grow best!
posted by Kathy @ 7:18 PM
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