Labor Days

Labor Day weekend has officially begun at our house – the last hurrah of summer. The kids are asking if they can work the phones and have a bunch of school friends over to swim and have the final big baseball game in the yard before climbing on the bus next Tuesday.

I considered cleaning my house last night, but figured that was a futile task with kids coming, so we grabbed ice cream and went to my parents’ house to watch the Phillies game.

I love having my parents close by. My children saw both sets of their grandparents yesterday, and I was thinking how important that consistent interaction is in their lives. Generations of love and investment, all of which reinforces who my kids are in the world and who they belong to. One of the things that I say to my kids all the time is, “Remember who you are and Whose you are.”

I’ve never been able to figure out the correct way to spell Whose or Who’s or whatever, but mostly I say it anyway. I capitalize it because my children know I am not only referring to their family, but I also mean God. I want them to understand now, that no matter what happens or where they find themselves, they are grounded and they belong to Someone.

Giving birth to them was a treat, and raising them is even more, but ultimately they were gifts that were loaned to me – to us, their family. Letting them grow to be what God intends, guiding them to discover their own path, is the greatest task I’ve been given.

And modeling how God feels about them, well, that’s a labor of love.