children built up as houses..

Several years ago, I watched a movie called "Life as a House". Oh, you know your typical dramatic (and very R rated..just so ya know!) movie about a man named George, who is divorced and estranged from his family and finds out he is dying from stage four cancer. Since he just happened to be an architect (gotta love Hollywood!), he decides to tear down the house left to him by his (verbally abusive) Father and re-build it to keep up with the neighborhood improvements. Having cancer somehow gives him the ephinany he needs to realize all the things that he has left unsaid to his ex-wife and children. As he starts to re-build the house, he convinces his troubled and drug-dealing teenage son into helping him by paying him for his work. As any great movie goes, it shows of a re-building of a house and a relationship..all at once.

George: With every crash of every wave, I hear something now. I never listened before. I’m on the edge of a cliff, listening. Almost finished.
[pause]
George: If you were a house , Sam, this is where you would want to be built: on rock, facing the sea. Listening. Listening.

I have often thought of this movie..it has always stuck with me. There is something very real and sad and also life-giving about what he is doing.
On the way home from one of the few extra-cirricular activities my kids are into at the moment, I just switched the radio on to hear, Chuck Swindoll (spelling..?), a pretty well known pastor, talking about "knowing your children". He then tells the story of how he gave the eulogy for his own Father's funeral..and in that moment, realizing that his Father never really knew him. He was never known by his own Father.

I don't think I am fully known by mine either.

But, oh do I want to make sure I know my children!

Which is why, I guess, this movie has sort of been on my mind.

There is another story that can be told about our Heavenly Father, too.

Matthew 7:24-27

The Wise and Foolish Builders

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Somehow, all I keep thinking about is the foundation of that house we build up in our children.

How we can so easily build them up with all the words and love and encouragement or we can easily tear them apart with our anger and frustration and very "adult" way of thinking.

It happens so fast that we don't even know that we are doing it, too.

I'm certainly not a saint at this child-rearing thing.

Well..it's kind of hard work and it takes every ounce of energy that I can muster to make sure I meet their basic needs.

Yet, I'm reminded they have "soul" needs to be met, too. Because..well..no on is ever going to care about their souls. No one cares about mine..and if we don't teach them to care about their's..they won't either.

I suppose..I will start by knowing them.

So, I have to make sure that I'm building them up..on a rock..a solid place that they will not sink and fall into the sea. Or crumble when the storms of life come calling..because they will!

Gosh..at the very least..I don't want them to sit at my funeral and wonder if I ever really knew them!