A Light for My Path

Recently some dear friends of mine lost their mother. Our families have been friends for multiple generations. We grew up in a rural Southern town of 500 people where everyone knew everyone. If an adult spoke to a child, that child responded with ma’am or sir. If you needed help you could go to the nearest adult and they would drop whatever they were doing, avert a crisis, and get in touch with your parents. (Likewise, if you were doing something you shouldn’t do.)

So, my friends’ mother’s passing was sorrowful to me. And to my daughter who as a child visited my hometown every summer and knew and loved all my parents’ friends, as well. These women were the matriarchs in our lives.

I haven’t lived in my hometown in more than 45 years. Yet I still feel the influence of these women in who I am. I firmly believe that having good adult role models is essential to a child’s upbringing. Not just talking about, but demonstrating – living – a faith-filled, honorable life can teach a child more than any rulebook.

I suppose I am reaching that age where I’m almost matriarch status. Not that I feel like I’m anywhere near the role model these ladies were. But I look around and, like it or not, there just aren’t many people of my mother’s generation still here.

What I appreciate though is that my older daughter seems to have absorbed their examples and characteristics. She and her husband have four children ranging in age from 9 to 18. They have raised their children in a faith-filled home, attending a Christian school, and learning responsibility and accountability through both words and actions. They are selective in their friends and in their children’s friends. The children all know and trust each other’s parents, just as I did as a child.

But it’s not because they all live in a tiny rural town. They live in the suburbs of the largest city in Florida. This trust and these relationships have come about because of shared values. They all take to heart what the Bible says in Proverbs 22:6.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

This is not to say that children raised in a Christian family will be perfect. They may stray. They may push boundaries. They may sow some wild oats. I certainly did. Even with the town matriarchs keeping a critical eye on me. Both my daughters did, as well. Although Rachel (the younger of the two) tended to push boundaries more and sowed more wild oats than her sister. She took a little longer to settle into living a mature, righteous lifestyle.

Still, we all came back to our roots. The examples we grew up with were embedded in our hearts and minds and could never be completely ignored. I have the comfort of knowing that Rachel was a Christ follower and a believer and she is celebrating in Heaven with the matriarchs who guided her.

We all have a responsibility (even those who are not parents) to set an example of a Godly life, to set boundaries, to instruct and discipline. To treasure children as a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3).

If we have the good fortune to grow old, we matriarchs can enjoy the fruits of our efforts and rest assured that our children are walking in the Light.

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Laura