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Rocking Chair Discipleship: The Colorado trees are turning radiant green, aspens are filling out and shimmering in our yard. Finally, our family is keen to sit in our rocking chairs for one more cuppa tea or coffee, another homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and delightful chats about everything in the world. How fun to have Nathan and Keelia back home with us for a while.
My kids lives have been more formed on our front porch while rocking than any place else except the dinner table. Often we sat together talking about the issues of life, sharing secrets, listening to hearts. Thousands of conversations did not look “holy” or “sacred,” yet these produced more lasting fruit in their overall lives. It is where mentoring, discipleship took place one hidden moment at a time.
Influence comes primarily through time spent, relationships developed, conversations giving birth to dreams over a lifetime.
An advocate parent is one who champions each child’s personality, seeks to encourage, pour in love, and is willing to go the long road to walk beside their child in every situation. It is what Jesus was like with us, His own children — an advocate, a lover, a shepherd, a savior.
We were far from perfect parents. We encountered all of the challenges and dark clouds of stress, pressure, mysterious phases and exhaustion that accompanies parenthood, but we learned to champion our children through every phase of life. How dear it was to hear these thoughtful words from a Clarkson child:
“Mama, you never ever gave up on believing that I would make it in life, even through all the ups and downs. You made me believe that I could actually do something that mattered with my life, and you are still doing it.”
I loved hearing these words because I didn’t always feel like I was doing this. There were those times where life seemed long, impossible, and challenging. Yet in all of those times, choices were made, words of hope were invested and they blossomed into lives that grew and flourished.
May God grant each of us strength to face our giants, to take one more step, to believe forward that God is at work even when we cannot see. Choosing to keep going through all the paths is a gift from God.