On Children
In just a few short days our first born son will become an adult. I cannot fathom where the past 18 years have gone. It seems in some ways an eternity since that first night when we brought him home in -32 C temperatures and we could not get him to eat! Yet in other ways it seems impossible to imagine all those years have now so quickly passed us by. It’s been a wild ride learning how to parent on the fly. As with every parent there have been a lot of rewarding moments and challenges intertwined. The past year as I knew the time of adulthood was approaching, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing together life direction, future goals, passions, strengths, and interests. I’ll admit these discussions contained it’s fair share of motherly worry and influence as I tried to guide and direct his path forward. I recently shared some of these worries with a friend of mine and she shared with me the poem, On Children written by Kahlil Gibran. It really spoke to me and has shed a whole new perspective on parenting my children into their future. The idea of children being short term companions but ultimately belonging to God. That we nurture and support them until they are ready to break free and discover themselves and their own path in this world. Parents being like bows used to launch arrows but it is God, the Archer who grips the bow and directs the arrow in a specific direction. If I try to interfere, I am in fact trying to change their life’s course and hindering their divine direction.
So it seems it’s time to watch those arrows launch while having the inner peace and confidence knowing that we did the best we knew how to do when we knew how to do it. I’ll let the One who grips the bow guide and direct it. I think He knows what He’s doing!!!
On Children
By Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
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