Monday, April 17, 2017

Teaching the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord

Dear Family and Friends,

Lately I've been thinking about how blessed I am with such wonderful parents. Almost every night when I think about the things I am grateful for I feel such an overwhelming graditude for my amazing family, particularly my parents. I cannot express the extent to which they have blessed my life, especially these past few months. In a lot of ways they have walked through much of this "trial of fire" with me. 

Parents are a pretty influential part of our lives, there are many prophets who write of the goodness and impact of their parents. This week I read Enos's recognition of his father. 

"Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and blessed be the name of my God for it—" (Enos 1:1)

As I read and reread this verse I realized I wasn't entirely sure what Enos meant by "nurture and admonition of the Lord". There was a cross reference that took me to Ephesians 6:4 which had the same phrase it in. I was able to look up the verse from Ephesians on greekbible.com and see what the original Greek words were used to write the verses as well as looking at the meaning. Looking at the words this is what I learned. Nurture was "bring up, nourish up, to maintain . Admonition meant basically "the whole training and education of children. training and care, cultivating the soul, correcting mistakes and curbing passions. Instruction aimed at increasing virtue." 

With a flushed out meaning, Enos's words had a much greater impact. With just a simple line he describes what I can only imagine is an entire childhood, adolescence, and adult years with being guided and taught the ways of righteousness. I felt like I could also apply those words to the way my own parents brought me up. I am grateful for the many things I was taught, not only by my parents but by the many others that have influenced my life. 

I know that I want to one day teach my children in these same patterns to help them come to know Christ as well. I also know that even though I don't have children now there are others I can influence now. We all influence and shape those around us, particularly those that we love. My hope is that we can all recognize the influence that we have on others and live in such a way as to teach in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord!" 

Love,

Katelyn 

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