I’ve been thinking. Scary, Huh?

When you’re a kid, you desperately want to be a teenager. When you’re a teenager you want to be an adult, but that seems to be where it stops. As a child or teenager you’re not thinking about the different stages that adults continue to go through.

It must be so difficult to go from the top of the heap to just a back seat driver. Or, in keeping with my King analogy to go from the King to the royal advisor.

There are times in life where you rise to the top of the heap – like in your family.

Boy and Girl meet, get married, and have kids. Boy and Girl are the King and Queen. They are in charge of everything. Their word is law and must be obeyed on punishment of death. As time goes on, their subjects grow up and start to make their own way in the world. Even starting to formulate their own rules for when they become the King or Queen of their domain. At some point, the original King and Queen are relagated to the highly exalted position of Royal Advisor. They remain the King and Queen of their own personal domain, but have no authority in other kingdoms. It seems like it must be very difficult to go from a place where your word is law, to a place where you can offer advice but then have to be content knowing, that it is exactly that – advice!

I am seeing ways in which this particular aspect of life is playing itself out in my personal life. As our children get older, we can train and offer advice, but still have to let them make a few mistakes. It’s hard, but often times the best way for them to learn. To have them learn to think about the consequesces of their choices, not just the immediate fun, is a valuable skill! Ones best learned on little things like eating all your Halloween candy in one sitting and getting a tummy ache. I can warn my children about the consequences but then can also let them make a choice.

Back to our King and Queen – I guess that the trade off for this scenario is in the different kingdoms surrounding them. To be able to look around and see that there are healthy, thriving kingdoms albeit not exactly like theirs. For them to realize that they did an amazing job training their subjects for the lives ahead of them. To know that they encouraged and loved and nurtured to the best of their abilities, and taught them how to make choices. Realizing that in teaching their subjects to make choices that the subjects would not always make the same choice that the King and Queen would make. BUT, that they were making choices based on what they know, and that they were following their hearts knowing that they would have to live with whatever consequences resulted.

May I always be compassionate and respectful of the different stages of life – whether my own or of those around me – and rejoice in the stage that I am in!