Scott's Sunday Thought

We had a couple speak to us in sacrament meeting who had just returned from their mission to Scotland. The sister said something that I found very clearly and plainly explains one of the great sources of frustration for missionaries and probably parents as well. It went a little something like this:

You cannot force a person to grow and mature any more than you can force a seed to sprout or fruit to ripen. All you can do is nourish, water, tend, and wait.

I want to especially emphasize the "wait" portion of that statement. She mentioned this in reference to their missionary work and the tendency for missionaries to see the great potential in their investigators or new converts and to try to push or pull those people to spiritual maturity and solid testimony before the time. Granted, some people will have been ready and waiting to receive the gospel and may progress to maturity like Summer dandelions, but others will take time to reach the potential so apparent to the missionaries and members who know them, requiring those enthusiastic supporters to just nourish, water, tend, and then wait for the maturing changes to run their course.

I think that this is going to be particularly difficult to do as a parent. When you feel like you know so much that could help your child to become the smart, sociable, witty, caring, determined, competent, confident person you know they will someday become, and yet any efforts to rush the process beyond a certain point will be like trying to talk a seed in to sprouting sooner, or coaching fruit into growing faster, or some equally "fruitless" endeavor. Sometimes, all you can do is nourish, water, tend, and wait. There is a lot more than parental coaching and preaching that goes into a child's maturing into an upstanding adult, so there is only so much you can do as a parent. So do what you can, but realize that much of your effort will likely be spent in patiently waiting for the changes to take place.