Everything grows in our garden. Only there are such "crops" called weeds, which grow by themselves, even if we didn't plant them, but they appear from somewhere, and there are so many of them. When a weed is small, then to pull it out doesn't require much effort. You slightly pull it, and it comes out of the earth entirely. Or you cut it with a hoe, and it doesn't grow anymore. But the more you don't pay attention to it, the more firmly it establishes itself in the earth, and the more difficult it becomes to get rid of it.
We saw similarity of such phenomena in our daughter's life too. We didn't teach her evil and egoism, but sometimes these qualities spontaneously manifested themselves, and we didn't understand where this came from and what to do with it. It was amusing to watch how a small being who still couldn't speak demanded attention for herself and could scream at you without any reason. But although the child was still small and didn't understand much yet, we were sometimes very concerned about such behavior. Self-will already made itself known, and the fleshly nature manifested itself where we didn't expect it.
We decided to root out such evil with good and always reacted to such actions with tenderness, trying to distract our daughter's attention with some interesting things, or did what we considered right, not looking at her whims. But there were such moments when our child's egoistic behavior alarmed us, and then we offered special prayers to God, asking Him for wisdom, strength and intervention in our difficult situation. And the Lord intervened.
Although our little daughter sometimes touched us, and we perceived her demands with a smile, the very manifestation of willful spirit from nowhere gave us to understand that the enemy of the soul hadn't died, but was already trying to sow his seeds and in time gather an abundant harvest from them. We decided to fight to the end and dedicate our daughter to God.
When our child had already learned to sit independently, we turned to our community with a request for special blessing and prayer for her. We were told what time this event would take place, and we invited all our relatives to this service, telling them that we would dedicate our daughter to God and wanted them to be witnesses of this event. For some reason they decided that we would baptize the child, so we had to explain to them that she would have to do this herself when she became much older and an independent person.
At the appointed time we gathered in the worship room, and the pastor of our community invited our family to come to the altar. He told all those present the story of how mothers brought children to Jesus, and the Lord blessed them. After this we knelt down, holding our daughter in our arms, and the minister stretched his hands over our daughter's head and pronounced words of blessing prayer.
We had seen how other children were blessed before, and now we ourselves were receiving these blessings together with our daughter. And she sat on my hands and attentively observed those around, not understanding what was happening. And we publicly dedicated our child to God and asked Him for special participation in upbringing and character formation according to the Heavenly pattern. This is what was happening! Our fellow believers were witnesses and participants of this ceremony, accepting us and our daughter into the team of victors, in order to then supplement with their participation our joy in forming a worthy personality from this little person.
Although during this dedication ceremony we didn't experience any visible miracle, we believed that something extremely important happened in Heaven, and henceforth our little family member is under special Divine care. Although she still has to choose for herself whom to serve soon, but being under God's influence, it will be easier to do this.
When my wife and I planned something, we didn't particularly ask our daughter how she saw our plans. We simply took her, and she had no other choice. But when the time came, and we began to give her additional food, she gradually began to understand taste and didn't want to eat some things, even if we asked her to try. If we managed to put what she didn't like in her mouth, she immediately spat it back out and didn't want to taste it anymore. But we decided not to worry about food, and if our daughter refused what she didn't like, we didn't replace it with anything for her, so as not to develop in her the understanding that this way one can get something more delicious.
Independent movement on her own feet brought additional safety measures to our home. Our daughter actively studied the new world and grabbed everything that was accessible to her, opened everything that could be opened, pulled everything that lay poorly, and put all small objects in her mouth. We had to devise all kinds of inventions to limit the child's access to the contents of closets and drawers. But we didn't scold her for this, and tried to remove from the accessibility zone what could break or cause harm or danger to life. We bought special plugs for all outlets, and the kitchen stove had to be turned off when we weren't using it.
At some point in our growth we gave our daughter a spoon and showed her how she could eat porridge herself. This transition is very important for the child, as it activates certain processes in consciousness that transfer mental development to a new level. As a result, everyone and everything within a two-meter radius was covered in porridge, but not so much got into her mouth. But we were prepared for this lesson and after eating cleaned everything up, and changed our eater into clean clothes. Our daughter liked the process itself and the next time she already wanted to eat by herself, refusing to accept anything from our hands. This sometimes created certain inconveniences, especially when we were in a hurry somewhere. But we found a way out of this situation, giving our daughter spoons in both her hands and at the same time feeding from another. Over time each meal became cleaner, and we habitually put on our daughter's plate what we ate ourselves.
Our general prayer to God was so customary that when we stood up for prayer, our daughter immediately folded her hands together and waited for when she could say: "Amen." At first these were sounds remotely similar to this word, but expressing her agreement. Subsequently, when she had already begun to speak, with her questions about prayer she disconcerted many people by asking why they didn't pray, or what they prayed about today. In one word, prayer life for our child was such a natural routine of the day that she waited for and rejoiced when we would conduct this ritual, and then take each other's hands and wish each other abundant blessings for the whole day. With her directness she trained all our unbelieving relatives to pray before meals and didn't give them chances to avoid this procedure, naturally folding her hands for quiet prayer of gratitude for daily bread.
We were always amazed by our daughter's ability to constantly find occupation for herself, see joy in any matter and achieve what she needed, and mommy's enthusiasm helped the child choose the right direction and quickly switch from her goals to mommy's.
Questions for Reflection
Please read Col.3:21; Rom.12:21; Eph.4:29-32; 5:8-11; 6:4; 1Thess.5:21-22; Prov.25:5; Gal.6:1; Phil.4:4-9; 1Tim.6:11 in light of this lesson. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind? What did you understand from this lesson? Is the saying true: "Little children — little troubles"? Should one fight evil in a child's character in early years? How do you understand "overcome evil with good"? Rom.12:21. Should something be forbidden to a little child? After all, he still doesn't understand anything and is so small. And do little children bring little joys? Or are these joys very big? What should you do if you don't know what to do with a capricious child, and he knows what to do with you? Have you noticed that children understand very well whom they're dealing with, and what you represent? At what age should boundaries be set for children? And are these boundaries needed at all? Are you interested that the place where a child was born and grows is for him the best place to live, even if it's one room in a communal apartment for 10 people? Do you know little children who would constantly complain to you about poor living conditions? Should one look for a nanny for the child if you can't handle him yourself?