If Life Gives You Wild Grapes...

It's interesting to go back and read the Book of Mormon again and notice what passages I highlighted the first time I read it.  They must have meant something special to me then - something different than they mean now.  The things that stood out to me today as I was reading were different than when I read even just a few months ago.  I can tell what things are weighing heavy on my mind.  I guess that's why it's important to read and reread the scriptures.

I'm still having a difficult time with giving my oldest daughter the independence to make choices on her own.  Next week, she'll go back to school.  During the summer, I've been able to control (there's that word again) a little easier who she "hangs out" with and how she spends her time.  When she goes back to school, I lose that control.  Between marching band practice and the regular school day, I'll hardly see her.  How will I know that she's making good decisions?  How will I know who she's associating with?  I won't.

In today's reading, Isaiah is talking about Christ and Israel. "...My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill."  Christ is "my well-beloved".  I love that, by the way.

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

I don't consider any of my kids "wild grapes" just yet, and I'm doing everything I can to prevent them from becoming so.  Ultimately, I don't have real control over whether that happens.

What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

What more could I be teaching my kids that I have not taught them?  Have I hedged up their paths?  I don't know!  

I once heard someone say that our Heavenly Father is the only perfect parent there ever was.  Absolutely perfect, and yet he lost a full one third of his children to Satan's plan, right from the start.  He must have been devastated.  What I learn from that, though, is that no matter how good a mom I am, I have the chance of losing some of them.  I also realize how important their freedom to choose is.  Heavenly Father did not force that one third to follow Jesus' plan.  He let them choose the wrong path, knowing full well that he'd probably never see them again.  I can only hope that I will never have to face a situation that difficult with my kids.  I know that some people do, and it's heartbreaking. 

Right now, while my kids are with me, they're kind of like this baby leaf.  They are just starting to find their direction.  Just putting out feelers.  They are still delicate and impressionable.  I know I'm doing the best that I can to give them a good foundation upon which to base their future choices.  I can hope and pray that they'll fall back on that foundation, but the choice is theirs. I can only hope that they will "bring forth grapes" and not wild grapes.  If I do get wild grapes, I guess I'll just have to learn how to make wild grape juice.

Click here to read what I read today: Chapter 15

Click here to read what I read today: Chapter 16