And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. II Timothy 3:15
The Walton’s is one of my
favorite TV shows. It reminds me of the way I worked together with my grandparents
when I was a child. Friday, I got to have a little Gramma time with my family. My
grandson brought his summer assignments to God’s Two Acres today. One of his
math project choices was to find a recipe, double it, execute it, and take a
picture of the final project to turn in when school begins in August. Chandler
loves to cook. Desserts are naturally his favorite, so I gave him the recipe
book and told him to look for something that interested him. He pulled out pages of his favorite sounding recipes and then came across a picture of an Uncle
Sam cake.
“You know, Gramma, I
wouldn’t have to make the Uncle Same cake. Maybe I could make a flag,” he said.
Hmmm. How many ways had I seen flag cakes done? Doubling a sheet cake might
present a problem. I didn’t have pan that big! Then we came up with the idea of
making a cupcake flag. He doubled the ingredients on the recipe page and we
laid out a plan, drawing circles for cupcakes deciding which ones would be what
color.
We worked together
gathering ingredients and mixing batter for the first round of cupcakes. While
the first 22 were cooling, he loaded cupcake papers and mixed batter
independently. I gathered the ingredients for icing. He was doing great for a
rising third grader.
When all the cupcakes
were cool, we lined them up in an array according to the plan and began to
frost each one, beginning with the white stripes. Then we did blue and then the
red. Ooops, no red food coloring. Hmmm, what to do? Colored sugar. That worked
well until we ran out of red sugar. We still had quite a few cupcakes left. Red
sprinkles, how could we use those? What a mix of red decorations. We moved the
variety around until we had a pleasing mix. Picture snapped, printed and placed
in a sleeve for school. He was ready for his Independence Day Cookout and he’d
knocked out a school project as well.
I think he had done much
more. He had begun to learn to read a recipe and follow directions. He learned
to double fractions. He gained confidence and independence. It was a lot of fun
for everyone, even those who just stopped by to beg for the extras. Their
compliments made the little chef happy. Two generations working together. It
felt better than Walton’s Mountain.
Training our children in
the little things is important to help them on the road to maturity. Whether it’s
cooking, making beds, gardening, or doubling fractions, the closeness of adults
and children working together makes the important learning enjoyable.
But what about the
spiritual learning/training? In our rushing and hurrying we tend to have our independent
devotion time, failing to include others of our family. Even if we try to make
a family time, it’s a rush between red-lights on the way to school and work. How
much attention and training are we actually giving to our children much less to
God to whom we are trying to devote time (devo-tion). How do you teach
independent Bible study when we’re not looking at the Word, not flipping pages
together? How are we teaching focusing on God when we are having to “watch and
pray” we don’t get run over in morning traffic? Waking up ten minutes early or
going to bed ten minutes late won’t harm anyone. It may even be beneficial. If
we turn off the distractions of our modern world and have a little God time
with family, we can help our children along the way to spiritual maturity. It
may even feel better than grace around the table on Walton’s Mountain.
How do you carve out time
for your family to spend together with God? Won’t you share your secrets
with us this week? We could all use some shared insight.
Hey Kids:
Do you have a favorite
recipe you would like to double and have twice as much?
Have you ever participated
in a Bible Sword Drill?
Do you have a favorite
thing you like to do with your parents or grandparents?
Has Grandpa taught you to
whittle and play mubbledy-peg yet?
Blessings,
Gail
No comments:
Post a Comment