Basic HTML Version
Cheerfulness in the Home Promotes Happiness, June 26
Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the
bones.
Proverbs 16:24
.
The mother should cultivate a cheerful, contented, happy disposition. Every
effort in this direction will be abundantly repaid in both the physical well-being and
the moral character of her children. A cheerful spirit will promote the happiness
of her family and in a very great degree improve her own health.
Let the husband aid his wife by his sympathy and unfailing affection. If he
wishes to keep her fresh and gladsome, so that she will be as sunshine in the home,
let him help her bear her burdens. His kindness and loving courtesy will be to her
a precious encouragement, and the happiness he imparts will bring joy and peace
to his own heart....
Great is the honor and the responsibility placed upon fathers and mothers, in
that they are to stand in the place of God to their children. Their character, their
daily life, their methods of training, will interpret His words to the little ones.
Their influence will win or repel the child’s confidence in the Lord’s assurances.
Happy are the parents whose lives are a true reflection of the divine, so that the
promises and commands of God awaken in the child gratitude and reverence; the
parents whose tenderness and justice and long-suffering interpret to the child the
love and justice and long-suffering of God; and who, by teaching the child to love
and trust and obey them, are teaching him to love and trust and obey his Father
in heaven. Parents who impart to a child such a gift have endowed him with a
treasure more precious than the wealth of all the ages—a treasure as enduring as
eternity.
In the children committed to her care, every mother has a sacred charge from
God. “Take this son, this daughter,” He says; “train it for Me; give it a character
‘polished after the similitude of a palace,’ that it may shine in the courts of the
Lord forever.” ...
There is a God above, and the light and glory from His throne rests upon the
faithful mother as she tries to educate her children to resist the influence of evil.
No other work can equal hers in importance....
The mother who appreciates this will regard her opportunities as priceless.
Earnestly will she seek, in her own character and by her methods of training, to
present before her children the highest ideal.... Diligently she will study His Word.
She will keep her eyes fixed upon Christ, that her own daily experience, in the
lowly round of care and duty, may be a true reflection of the one true Life.—
The
Ministry of Healing, 374-378
.
[192]
189