School Days:

My youngest grandchild just went off to her first day of school today. Have a great day, Kira.
It is an experience that has been, or will be going on all over the country. It is a significant day for parents and kids. Most of the home-schooling families I know haven't started their program for the year, yet, but when they do, though it will be more subtle, the reality will be the same. Our children are growing up.
And they should!
In one of the New Testament's most definitive passages on parenting, Ephesians 6:1-4, we read that parents,are to "bring them up," literally to nourish them. Like many of you, I've lately been enjoying some home-grown tomatoes. The luscious fruit is the result of plants having what they need to grow from tiny two-leaf seedlings to productive vines. Especially those of you who grow those dinner-plate-sized 'maters made sure that those plants had what they needed to grow and produce. Now the delicious result is dripping off your chin. I don't want to get carried away--children aren't garden-vegetables, but that word "ektrepho" describes both what good parents and successful farmers do--we "bring them up."
I enjoy my children, especially since at this stage in life they provide me with grandchildren, but God did not entrust them to me primarily for my pleasure. The Psalmist observed that they are a "heritage" from the Lord. I need to invest in them in such a way so that these children will be and become a blessing to the world. Today Kira stepped out into the world in a new way, At the end of this school year Christopher, my oldest grandchild, will take another step, when he graduates from high-school. It is part of bringing them up. I continue to pray that my sons will bring them up well.

For moms looking at the taillights of a school bus with tears in their eyes, and dads handing off a set of keys . . .

It's STTA.