I just want to relate something precious:

I brought Fantasia 2000 home from the library yesterday.  I set it up for the children and brought my crocheting (almost done Patty!) in with me to watch it with them.  Of course, I mostly watched instead of worked.

During one part, there is an imaginative depiction of the destruction a volcano can accomplish – the lava taking on a corporeal (monster) form.  Pickles was watching with his eyes like saucers and I worriedly looked at him to see if it were too scary.  He, still watching, pushed up next to me in a way that demonstrated complete trust in my protection.  It’s very humbling, delightful and terrifying at the same time.  I thought of the “Prayers of parents for their children” that I read with the rest of my prayers and remembered this line:

“O good Lord, I pray to Thee, grant that I have joy and gladness in my children; vouchsafe that I appear with them before Thy terrible tribunal, and without fear say: ‘Here I am, O Lord, with the children Thou has deigned to give me'”

It is a fearful thing to realize that children are very much like the talents in the parable.  We will be expected to have demonstrated good husbandry and increase, to show that we have done our best with what we have been lent.  For the children are ours only for a time – they are God’s for all eternity.

May God give all of us parents strength and fortitude to sacrifice our own selfish thoughts and desires in order to bring up pious children who will glorify His name.