Listening to our Parents

As always, I read a chapter of Proverbs each morning, and with it being the first of May, today's focus in on the theme and purpose of the book. Proverbs is a great book to seek God's wisdom for our daily lives.
The passage I'm focusing in on today Ch. 1: 8 - 9
"Listen my son to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland of grace to your head and a chain to adorn your neck".
In the original Hebrew text, the word "listen" means to listen with a view of obedience.

As I've said before, my daddy was a Southern Baptist preacher. Out of all the things I remember the most that he said to me it was this: " Baby girl, when you think that life can't get any worse, when it seems like your whole world is falling apart, go read the book of Job". Being the daddy's girl I was, if he said it - I believed it, so I was listening to my father's instruction, and have been in situations in my adult life where I did think my whole world was falling apart, and that I couldn't go on another day. Reading the book of Job and seeing that what I was facing was nowhere near the trials Job went through, and how God was there with him throughout it all, has been that "garland of grace" referred to in verse 8.
My mother read Bible stories to us all and we heard her singing hymns on a daily basis while doing her housework. She made sure we were in Sunday School, revivals, and Vacation Bible School until we were old enough to leave home. There were so many times, especially when I was a teenager, that church was the last place I wanted to be.
I was "the prodigal daughter" - I rebelled when I left home and went my own way, not attending church, not practicing what I'd been taught, and when I was in my early twenties and faced a situation that I knew that only the Lord could get me out of, I called out to him and He turned was right there with his arms wide open to save me and put me back on the right path.
No parent is perfect; we all as children think we can do it better and in our own way, and the Lord allows us to wander off the path of wisdom, and is always there for us when we reach that point in the road where it ends up at the edge of a steep cliff, and we have nowhere else to turn but to Him. He tells us in the book of Romans that: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved".
As a parent of two adult children, I pray that some of the teachings I gave them as children will help them as face life's trials, and then when they begin families of their own. I pray that they will draw on the same strength and wisdom of the Lord that I have, and will pass this on to their children as well.
I hope your day is filled with the grace and blessings of the Lord.....

Janelle