WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

Something happened last night that made me think back to our Sunday School lesson on Sunday. We were studying Ezekiel 18:2 that says, "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?'" During class we discussed "proverbs" or sayings that our parents often said and/or lived by like: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Don't judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes."

Last night my mind started thinking on some others that seem to be somewhat related. How many parents, when they come to the end of their patience, have said to their child: "I hope when you grow up you have a child just like you!"? Then there are the sayings, "Out of the mouth of babes come words that Mom and Dad should never have uttered in the first place" and "The leaf never falls far from the tree." We laugh, but aren't these true? How many of us sigh as we look at our children in frustration and say, "Why did they pick up all my bad traits and habits, and not my good?"

Last, but not least, I shared a "proverb" with the Sunday School class my mother sometimes told me: "What goes around, comes around."The older I get the more I realize the truth of this statement and the ones in the paragraph above. My son is so much like me it is freaky at times. I see in him things that reflect what I unconsciously modeled in what I would say, do, and how I would act and react in certain situations. Thank the Lord, many of these are good reflections, but there are some I wish he had not picked up ... I now get to feel what others felt when I unconsciously modeled these things for him.

Sometimes, as we look back on our lives as parents and as children, we wish we could do it over, especially in the area of relationships. We often say, "If only I had known..." But life gives us only one "shot". For instance, as a mother, if I had been a teacher first and known more%