Lent: Teach Your Children

by Amy Welborn

Take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children…

(Deuteronomy 4:9)

This is something we tend to fret about, all of us, whether we are parents or not: How can we help our children to be fulfilled? How can we teach them to be happy?

I sometimes wonder if those are the right questions. Or at least, if it’s the only question. We live in a world that’s all about celebrating our potential. But what happens when we’re disappointed? When it all collapses? When we get the frightening diagnosis? When it all hurts? When I am about to die?

How much of what we “teach”—ourselves and others—is either a distraction or, worse, separating me from the reality of life in God, which will culminate, necessarily, in the mystery of death, perhaps with suffering along the way. Jesus knows the answer. To be reconciled to suffering and death, I’ll journey with him.

Jesus, help me learn from suffering.

“Teach Your Children“ was selected from Reconciled to God, Daily Lenten Devotions (Creative Communications for the Parish)  with Amy Welborn’s permission to publish it on JoyAlive.net.  Amy, mother of five, has worked as a Catholic high school teacher, Parish Director of Religious Education, writer for the Florida Catholic, columnist for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service. She has been writing full time since 1999 and has written nineteen books and many pamphlets and study guides. She is a regular contributor to the Living Faith and Living Faith for Kids devotionals.