Scripture:
Grant to my son Solomon that with single mind he may keep your commandments, your decrees, and your statues, performing all of them, and that he may build the temple for which I have made provision.
- 1 Chronicles 29:19

Devotional:
I grew up on a tobacco farm in rural Kentucky in a family of sharecroppers. The work was grueling and when the crop was sold, half of the money went to the landowner; along with any money we had to borrow from him through the year to sustain ourselves. It was a vicious cycle year after year that only ended due to illness. It was not the life my mama wanted for me.  She made sure that I studied, made good grades, and kept my focus on God and the future. That was the way to break the cycle.

While Solomon had an entirely different upbringing, I think David and my mama had a lot in common: a desire that their kids keep God as a focus, and to provide the provisions needed to get the job done. Mama didn’t have gold or silver to give me to make my path easier, but she gave me something worth more: love, support, a vision for the future, and, most importantly, a love for God.

And isn’t that what we all want for the children that God brings to our lives? To instill in them a love for God, to give them our love, our support, and a vision for the future. These children will have lives built with the talents and gifts God blessed to them, and the support and love that we provide from our own talents and gifts. They will go forth to do magnificent things, and to pass on, in kind, to the children God brings to their lives.

Prayer:
God, give us the words, the wisdom, the example, the love to pass on to those children You bring into our lives; Your love, Your example, Your wisdom. Let us teach them that they are wonderfully, fiercely, and uniquely made, and they are deeply loved. Open our hearts to pour out to them, to fill them up, so they can fill others. In Your Son’s Precious Name, Amen.

Written by Gwen Hess, who is a Congregational Care Minister, a Seminarian, mother of three, grandmother of four (soon to be five!) and wife of Greg.