I Wish I Might

As children the song, When I Wish Upon a Star... encouraged us to not be afraid to dream. Dreams were free most of the time.

The wish right now for me is 'complete healing', and an end to the constant pain. The dream is to finish what I'm here to accomplish.

I didn't set out to be a teacher, and being a mom was an adjustment. By the time I was at the mom age I had become mostly a loner. Not without friends, but after being on mission trips I've noticed many young girls at that age act as if they've got a heart for young children.

From my own childhood and onward, children were never kind to me, therefore I never felt kindly inclined back. Especially after my summer's babysitting job when I was fourteen.

But one's own children aren't the same as babysitting, and I did come around. I had a little T-shirt that said, 'Children are people too', and I prayed a lot. And it was good I concentrated on being a Christian wife and mother first off, otherwise too many irons in the fire would have caused frustrations.

When my mother, in derision, would say; you're just like your grandmother', it didn't have the same affect on me as it would have had on some children. I didn't necessarily see my grandmother as a bad person. I saw her as the roll model—I certainly didn't want to be like my mother in most things.

As a parent it became a fine line. Wanting to be both firm and kind, yet it often became a fine line between the two.

A parent's job is not to be a 'pal' with their kids, but to be ever showing and teaching how to be an adult so that it isn't such a surprise. Like one of my boys when after moving out asked me; 'do you know how much socks cost?'

How funny, to ask a mother of seven kids...do you know how much socks cost? Yes, yes I believe I do.

"For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalms 16:10-11 KJV)