Month: November 2020

What’s Your Destination? – Have You Checked Your Compass?

One of my many duties as a high school teacher in a small school was to drive students to contests and events that I sponsored. 

I have a terrible sense of direction, and unfortunately, on one such trip, my high school co-pilot wasn’t much better. After making several wrong turns, this soft spoken young man looked at the written directions and said, “Turn at the next corner!”

I followed his instruction and he sighed loudly and said, “This is it, we’re headed west.”

At the end of my patience, I asked, ”Just how do you know that?”

He pointed to a spot on the rearview mirror, and said calmly, “Because that compass says so!”

What a life lesson! We are all equipped with a moral compass that directs our paths. We can choose to follow it, or go in circles trying to find our way.

God has given us all the tools we need to arrive at our chosen destination – His word, significant others to offer advice,  inspiration through churches, podcasts, books, music…the list goes on. 

The choice is ours whether we continue to wander aimlessly or to seek the means to reach our goals. His still small voice speaks to our hearts and we need to have eyes to see and ears to listen.

How long has it been since you checked your compass?

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye upon you. Psalms 32:8

What’s your parenting goal – Want to raise winners?

She was a teacher’s Dream Mom.

 Her daughter made the only B she ever made in any class in my seventh-grade English class. Instead of banging her shoe on my desk, her mom told her to work harder. She encouraged her daughter to be the best she could be, and the girl delivered. She was valedictorian, and I was privileged to be her sponsor as a state debater, student council president, and a member of the one-act play cast. She also made A’s in my two high school English classes.

 The same mom warned me her boys were not going to be as easy to teach as her daughter, and she was right.  Among other things, one of her two sons spilled a two-liter of a soft drink all over my classroom carpet when a substitute was in my class. On the last day of school, Mom brought a carpet shampooer to school and told him to clean the carpet. When he thought he was done, she looked at it and said, “Not good enough, do it again.” And he did.

Today, her daughter is a practicing attorney, and her sons, both successful businessmen. They have made her proud and I have always treasured her support.

There is a lesson to be learned from teaching one’s children to be responsible for their own actions. During COVID, some parents have learned that teaching is not easy. This mom did not need a pandemic.

Let’s not get tired of doing what is good, for at the right time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up

Galatian 6:9